Ami Faku in Bitter Royalties Dispute With Manager Raphael Benza and Record Label Vth Season

• Ami Faku is suing her manager, Raphael Benza and his record label Vth Season in Johannesburg court over unpaid royalties and demands disclosure of their accounting books
• Ami Faku accuses Raphael Benza of exploiting her as a young black female artist through unfair contracts and providing incomplete, disorganised royalty reports
• Ami Faku also claims ownership of her hit album Imali, stating she personally invested over R400,000 for its production

South African singing sensation Ami Faku is dragging her manager, Raphael Benza, and his record label Vth Season to a Johannesburg court over her royalties. Faku is allegedly seeking an order to force Benza to disclose his accounting books for her royalties.

Ami Faku in court with manager

Popular singer Amanda Faku, popularly known as Ami Faku, is taking Liberian national Raphael Benza and his label Vth Session to court over royalties. Benza became popular in the South African music scene because of his close friendship and working relationship with the late rapper Kiernan "AKA" Forbes. Benza, who has previously spoken about how he was able to predict that AKA would be a great artist, reportedly approached Faku and asked to manage her in 2018.

According to Sunday World, Faku wants the artist agreement, management agreement and publishing agreement she signed with Benza and his stable, Vth Season, who are the second and first respondents in the case, to be terminated. Part of her court papers read:

“I am a black South African female music artist. I draw to the attention of this honourable court that I refer to my gender and my colour for the reason that the second respondent (who is a foreign national from Liberia) has a propensity to see out potentially successful young black female music artists and to entice them into a contractual relationship with either himself or with the first respondent to their detriment and to the first and second respondents’ financial gain."

Ami Faku accuses Benza of taking advantage of her

Although he has been praised for taking care of his artists after vowing to ensure that Kairo Forbes would be taken care of following AKA's untimely death, Raphael Benza is being accused of taking advantage of Ami Faku. In the court papers, the Fatela singer shared that she started working with Benza when she was still new in the industry and didn't know the industry.

Per the agreement, the Imali singer was supposed to receive 50% of the net income received by the stable. Vth Session was also supposed to record all the money earned and provide a detailed report to the singer and her team. However, Faku alleges that when she reached out to ask for the paperwork, she was given hundreds of pages of discombobulated documents, which are incomplete and not accurate, and were sent to her via Dropbox.

The singer also claimed that she owns the masters to her hit album Imali because she used more than R400K from her own money for its production.

Minnie Dlamini threatens to sue MacG after his apology

Meanwhile, Briefly News reported that actress and sports personality Minnie Dlamini has reacted to MacG Mukwevho's apology on her social media platform and threatened to pursue legal action against the podcaster.

The former The Wild actress made headlines when the podcaster made nasty comments about her following her split from her ex-boyfriend, Dr Brian Monaisa.

Source: Briefly News