Words by Phil Chard

t's been a busy month in South African Hip Hop. With defections and scandals galore. One of the bigger scandals happened 3 weeks ago when a number of artists including A-Reece, Fifi Cooper and B3nchMarQ announced their departure from Ambitiouz Ent.

In the ensuing aftermath Ambitiouz decided to respond to the allegations being made against them by B3nchMarQ on Twitter. Curiously they only decided to respond to B3nchMarQ alone and not the litany of accusations being made by the other defectors.

In a series of what I can only describe as ill-advised tweets, Ambitiouz accused B3nchMarQ of having unreasonable expectations and constantly demanding remuneration which did correlate to the work they were producing.

The duo denied these claims before hurling a medley of insults and accusations at their former label and its employees.

Though the issue is clearly far more complex that what meets the eye. There are a few caveats that I gleaned from this situation

Firstly if B3nchMarQ truly were on a R20,000 salary they don't realise how good they had it. The life of an artist is tough. Finding a balance between creating art, promoting that art and developing a brand that will eventually translate into show money is not easy. If both members were receiving R20,000/month that translates to R480,000 a year in salaries. Keep in mind this money is paid out and the leveraged against future potential earnings from the group (if Ambitiouz are operating their books the way a label normally would).

When you consider that B3nchMarQ have not really set the scene alight in the last year outside of lending their voices to Ambitiouz features and their solo release for All On Me that R480,000 salary is nothing to scoff at. Coupled with the fact that B3nchMarq were enjoying a series of bookings (whether they paid or not is yet to be seen), TV appearances , Radio bookings and publicity simply because they were associated with Ambitiouz and its artists

Secondly Ambitiouz made some claims regarding the expenses accrued while trying to establish the group. Frankly that was unnecessary and petty. The role of the label is to assume the risk of creating an artist(s) that comes with the territory.

So at this point we are dealing with a situation where it seems like both the label and artists might have had a number of misunderstandings which affected their business relationships. However if Ambitiouz is indeed planning on taking the issue to court as they tweeted, we will be able to get a clearer idea of how these contracts were structured. Except B3nchMarQ claim they never signed any contracts!

In a recent interview with Slikour the duo said they never signed any documents with the label. This is a massive red flag. However the bigger red flag appeared when Slikour asked the artists who owned the publishing and Tkay responded by saying

"Ummm ahhh, I don't really know who owns the publishing, nobody got a royalty cheque" 

WHAT?!?!?

You are creating music, this is your job, this music is meant to feed you, yet you don't know who owns the very things you create as an artist?

But things continued to devolve, further along in the interview PJay described how the artists were booked for shows and how they were paid. The group was adamant that this arrangement was not fair and corrupt. But essentially what the group described was a standard arrangement for a booking agent who is paid a retainer as well as a commission for bookings secured.

It's scary to consider how little these artists know when that knowledge is essential to their survival.

Now onto the new music from the group. Last week the duo announced a new single titled Wayase with Nigerian rapper Ice Prince. The song is a smooth and mellow joint that will play well at laid back gatherings. It's not really a radio themed song but it would do well with a video.

However after the departure Ambitiouz announced that the group was free to release their music, which I assume was worked on while they were still signed. It's hard to imagine that they were able to secure a feature from Ice Prince in just two weeks whole dealing with all this turmoil.

However Ambitiouz didn't say anything about their old releases and in true petty style the label has deleted all solo B3nchMarQ records from its YouTube page. Despite being Petty it's also short sighted - now Ambitiouz cannot monetise that video and at least try to make the money spent back on it.

MOVES #WAYASE ✈ pic.twitter.com/1zZU1hJOba

— B3nchMarQ #WAYASE  (@B3nchMarQ) March 4, 2017

Soon after the release of Wayase the duo also announced that they were going on a UK your that would include Dublin, Birmingham and London in May. Now I'm not one to try and pour water on their parade but who will be attending these shows? B3nchMarQ objectively only have 1 certified hit which is no longer available on YouTube and no longer has the marketing efforts of a label behind it. AKA, Cassper Nyovest and KO have all toured UK riding off the back of massive singles (some of which were getting rotation on British radio) and still struggled to fill small venues and bars. Not to mention that AMbitiouz seems to be pushing for an injunction barring the former signees from performing songs that were released while they were on the label. If Ambitiouz does indeed won the master recordings for these songs there are workarounds to this issue, however it is yet another speed bump foe the group as they look to etch their own path.

The future for B3nchMarQ is still very uncertain from my point of view but I worry deeply about any artist who feels they are entitled to certain benefits when they don't even understand their own basic rights as an artist. It's very difficult for me to understand how they can complain about not receiving royalty cheques when by their own admission they have no idea of how much of a royalty they are owed.