By Mtandazo Dube
The producer of Pastor Charles Charamba’s sound-alike gospel artiste, Trymore Bande, has taken a swipe at Charamba’s stable for “rushing” to the police without taking the time to engage him and his team.
Layton Ngolomi, who is no stranger to controversy involving “copycats”, said as gospel artistes, the issue could have been handled differently.
“It is so sad and confusing that as gospel artistes we started off by going to the police instead of sitting down to talk. Surely Pastor Charamba’s manager or the pastor himself could have called and we would have clarified the matter.
“To make matters worse, Trymore had called Pastor Charamba soon after discovering that pirates had pounced on his project and used the pastor’s name. However, they are the ones who were left with egg on their faces after we produced our original CDs at the police station, so we were cleared of any wrongdoing,” said Ngolomi.
Controversy surrounding the hit gospel album by Bande, who sings like the esteemed Machira Chete hitmaker, began when copies of Bande’s Zvakagara Zvakadaro appeared on the black market with Pastor Charamba’s name.
Upon discovering this, Pastor Charamba’s team is then said to have filed a report with the police to investigate potential fraud.
However, Ngolomi feels that with both camps being gospel-driven and prayerful people, the Charambas should have contacted Bande, his producer or management to find out what could have happened.
“I am sure they thought that we are the ones who did it. They must have been convinced that we deliberately put Charamba’s name on the CD to market our artiste. After all I’m not yet into distribution and marketing, I do not even know how I ended up being fingered in this,” said Ngolomi.
This is Ngolomi’s second controversy involving copycats after he was initially fingered in a similar case involving gospel artistes Mathias Mhere and Blessing Shumba. Mhere’s album appeared on the streets bearing Shumba’s name and a similar storm erupted.
Interestingly, it is the same producer (Ngolomi) and the same distributor (Slimaz Pro) that are in the middle of both controversies.
Industry players, who declined to be named, say it is now being suspected that this could be a big scam involving cunning characters. However, Willard Magombedze who runs Slimaz Pro was quick to distance himself.
“This is the work of pirates, they are clever people. They know that Charamba has not released an album in a while and his fans are starved so when they see an opportunity they pounce. It was the same with Mhere and the DVD album of our artiste, Pa Chihera,” said Magombedze.
On the other hand, Ngolomi does not deny that he might have caused the confusion between Mhere and Shumba, saying it was bound to happen since he plays instruments for both artistes and also produces their music.
“I have a signature sound and I play for both artistes, it was bound to happen. However, I am not in any way involved in music distribution, I have no idea how that side of business goes and I could not have caused this latest case,” said Ngolomi.
Meanwhile, Pastor Charamba’s manager Ngoni Chandiwana has said they had no choice but to take the route which they took.
“This is a serious infringement on our artiste. Piracy is one thing but this reckless fraud is an entirely different case. We are against anything that is illegal, so to avoid ending up being blamed for taking the law into our own hands we went to the police,” said Chandiwana.
In the meantime, Harare police spokesperson Inspector Tedious Chibanda has warned pirates that athe net is closing in, saying the long arm of the law is catching up with syndicates behind the criminal acts. He said investigations into the Charamba, Bande case are continuing.
Pirates continue to haunt Pastor Charamba whose last release was Pashoko Pangoma back in 2010.
Last year, an album titled Minana, supposedly by the Zimbabwean singer, found its way onto the South African market and the fans of the musician unwittingly parted with their hard-earned cash. Sunday Mail
