“I led the delegation that took Shakira to côurt so the Cameroonian music group Zangalewa could get their author’s rights for Shakira’s World Cup song “Waka Waka.” Wax Dey , Cameroonian music executive reveals‼️
“I studied music business and lãw at a time when Africans didn’t know much about music as a business. So I found myself in a position where whenever artist especially Nigerian artist had contracts, I’d be the first person that they’ll call. I handled a lot of contracts for Flavour to the point of actually negotiating Flavour’s first international release with Universal Music Group under my label. Then there was a world cup song by Shakira “Waka Waka”, that came out and obviously I knew the song was sámpled from Cameroonian music group Zangalewa. So since I was in the US, I knew the song was dropping and I called back in Cameroon and asked if they knew that Shakira was remaking the song and I was shôcked to hear that nobody knew about it. Understanding the lãw and understanding everything about music rights, I knew that something had to be done about it so I put myself in that position to make them get their due royaltîes. I was the one that was working for Zangalewa to make sure that they get their settlement which went very well by the way. Shakira had to give them an advance payment of about $400k but the contract is a much more substantial fee because for the past 10 years, the group has been receiving millions every 3 months from the royaltîes of that song. That’s where I found myself being exposed to the world and being more informed among other artists. Where I come from, people didn’t really know much about sámpling and music rights at the time so I just had to do what was right.” Wax Dey
There’s a lot of money in music, with just one hit record if managed properly, it will pay you for life. Unlike football money, music money doesn’t get finished
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