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| Mzbel To Face Court Action |
1/5/2007 |
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After two successive years of trauma and sexual assault, fresh trouble has emerged so early in the year, albeit in a more civil form, to haunt the promising career of hiplife songstress, Mzbel.
This time, it is not about her sexuality or the abuse of her feminine endowment. It is neither the exploitation of her sweet qualities nor the animalistic assault on her by rogue students and armed bandits.
Rather, Mzbel must braze up for a legal battle in defense of her flexibility as a singer and an emerging film star. And the man in the other corner of this imminent legal warfare is the man with the legal rights to husband and develop her showbiz talents.
Unless an amicable solution is quickly found to the impasse between the hiplifer and Isaac Abeiku Aidoo of Goodies Music Production, the two would be heading for the law courts before the end of this month.
The feud is over what Goodies describes as Mzbel’s disregard for a contract signed between them in May 2005 which elapses in May 2008.
He has accused Mzbel of breaching the contact several times and also making certain public pronoucements about their working relationship which he can’t harbour any longer.
He has, therefore, asked Alhaji Sidiku Buari, President of the Musicians Union of Ghana (MUSIGA) to intervene and bring her to order. Failing that, he asserts, the only option left for him is to go to court.
Under the contract, Goodies is to negotiate deals for and promote Mzbel’s works for the stipulated period. That entitles him to 30% of the proceeds he makes in the process.
Goodies has similar arrangements with other artistes including VIP,Tic Tac, Afro Moses, Sidney and Tony Tetuila from Nigeria.
According to Goodies, it was Mzbel who made the initial approach for them to work together. ”She came forward because she probably realised my extensive connections which I was utilising to push my artistes forward.
I don’t take on just anyone but Mzbel is intelligent and has the potential to be big even outside of Ghana so I agreed to work with her.”
That was soon after the release of Mzbel’s I’m 16 album by Hush Hush Studios. Goodies obtained the rights to market it and he pumped it hard to the public.
The music was everywhere and Mzbel gained more attention.Their relationship coasted along pretty well until the unfortunate robbery and rape incident in Mzbel’s home last September.
A section of the contract states that Mzbel must inform Goodies and obtain his approval before travelling anywhere for a show. Goodies says Mzbel accepted and performed at a show in Nigeria without informing him.
“She said she was going to Somanya for a family meeting but a friend called from Nigeria that she was on stage there. That was before the robbery. I was angry and told her not to repeat that but she is in Holland now for performances without my approval.”
Under the contract, any commercial exploitation of Mzbel’s image and voice without consent from Goodies is also prohibited.
Despite that, Mzbel has gone ahead to act in local films on her own volition.According to Goodies, she only tried to bring him into the picture when the film producers used music from her albums on the soundtracks without telling her.
“She complained about that, expecting me to take some action but I didn’t because she kept me in the dark right from the beginning.
That was also against the spirit of what we had agreed on. I think her public appearances need to be regulated in some way but she doesn’t seem to see the point in that.”
Goodies is again not enthused about how Mzbel is allowing her love life to interfere with their formal business relationship.
The man she intends to marry soon is a London-based entertainment promoter she met through Goodies. There is an impending transaction between Goodies and the guy concerning Mzbel for which part payment has been made to Goodies.
“She is now insisting that I should forget about the rest of the money because the guy is her boyfriend. We are mixing two very different things here and I have told her I’m not happy about that.”
He also spoke about the robbery and assault case which had been the main source of their strained relations.
“I rushed there immediately I heard of what had happened.
After hospital treatment I put her in a hotel for a week. She then moved in with a friend. I needed to travel to Nigeria for business and asked her to come along so she would be completely away from the Ghanaian public.
She said she could take care of herself here so I went alone.” The first cracks in the relationship began to show when Mzbel contradicted Goodies’ account of what happened during the attack on her.
Whilst Goodies vehemently denied to the media that she was raped, she confirmed to Showbiz in her first post-trauma interview that she was raped by the first guy in one room and the second attacker brought her to another room and also had his turn, paying no heed to her pleas for mercy.
Even if she was not happy about Goodies leaving the country at a time when she was so traumatised, she only bottled it up for a while.
Mzbel later told an entertainment weekly in Accra that: “Goodies just left town for three weeks when he knew I couldn’t do all the running around myself.
I had no money and he didn’t even care...I don’t want to work with him anymore. I’m still going to give him his 30% till my contract expires. But from now on I’m going to do all my negotiations by myself.”
Goodies says he is surprised at Mzbel for the kind of things she has been saying of late and can’t put a finger on what or who is pushing her to make all those pronoucements.”It hurts.
I know I’m doing a good job for her. Everyone knows where she was at before we joined forces and where she is now. I’ve tried to meet her since coming back from Nigeria but she’s been evasive. She asked why I wasn’t calling the Police or going to see them.”
Asked if he regrets having added Mzbel to the stable of artistes he works with, Goodies answered in the negative adding that he still likes her a lot and that it may be the trauma she’s been through that’s affecting her actions of late.
It could also be that, he speculates, someone else who wants to manage her business affairs is teleguiding her recent pronouncements.
Whatever it is, there is a lot of unfinished business between Mzbel and Goodies. For example, a court decision is still pending in the case in which Goodies and Mzbel have sued the authorities of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST) for the assault on the artiste in 2005.
Agreements have also been signed for Mzbel to perform in East Africa, England and the United States later this year and Goodies has already started producing promotional material for her new album.
From all indications, however, solution to the Goodies and Mzbel tussle is hanging delicately between the diplomatic skills of Alhaji Sidiku Buari and a possible showdown in court.
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