Following the release of RuffTown Records signee Wendy Shay’s song ‘Africa Money’, netizens quickly cited a similarity in title and content to Barima Sidney’s Africa Money released in 2009.
As a result, netizens took to social media to urge Barima Sidney to take legal action against Wendy Shay for alleged copyright infringement.
However, despite the online uproar, Barima Sidney chose not to pursue any legal action against Wendy Shay and his reason is simple; he will not pay heed to any call that would create disunity.
Speaking in a recent interview on Cape Coast-based Property FM, he said; “I’ve never commented on this Wendy Shay sampling of Africa Money issue because I don’t see that my sister sampled my song.
“Some bloggers tried to spark some confusion between us but she has done her song and I’m not the inventor of the word Africa or money. So if I’ve done Africa money and she has also done Africa money it’s all good and so I didn’t have any problem with it but it was bloggers who said Sidney about to drag Wendy Shay to court but I’ve not said anything.
The words we used in our songs aren’t created by us and there are no new words to be used so we are all using the same words that have existed for long and so whatever I say today someone might have said it already.
I didn’t see anything wrong and I thought it was normal but then my only problem was when bloggers started creating stories trying to pitch me against her to make her respond to spark something for them I can’t tell.
He continued: “I will never stand anywhere to say that Wendy Shay has sampled my song because of the word Africa I’m not the one who brought it and the word money so if someone put these two words together to create something there’s nothing wrong.”
