Jah Prayzah accused of ‘stealing’ song ‘Moto’ from fellow musician Kurai Makore

HARARE – There might be another plagiarism storm for high-flying musician Jah Prayzah, after a scholar alleged that a song on his recent release sounded too similar to another released last year by fellow musician, Kurai Makore.

Jah Prayzah has been receiving plaudits, as well as financial reward, for the release of his album, Ndini Mukudzeyi, his 14th album, which was launched to fanfare in the capital last weekend.

In a post on Facebook, Dr Blessing Ivan Vava, the regional director at Crisis Coalition in Zimbabwe, claimed that Jah’s song, Moto, sounded too similar to Makore’s Kanyarugwe.

“What happens to copyright law, listening to Jah Prayzah’s song Moto from his latest album Ndini Mukudzei sounds like a plagiarized song of Kurai Makore “Kanyarungwe” released in 2024,” Vava wrote.

This is not the first time that Jah Prayzah has been accused of plagiarism.

In 2014, the musician admitted that he copied the beat of his song “Mwanasikana” on the album “Tsviriyo” from Ghanaian musician Emmanuel Samini’s 2007 hit track titled “Samini”.

This was after he came under fire from critics on social media networks after an online publication accused him of ‘stealing’ the song.

“I was watching an African movie and I enjoyed the soundtrack. I did not know it was a released song (on the market). I just thought it was a track made for the movie. The beat was good and I was tempted to use it on one of my songs,” he said.

The musician claimed he did not know the composer of the song until he was alerted of the matter.

“I did not know about Samini and I did not know it was his song until a friend sent me a link of the track recently. He just told me to check the similarities between the songs and I realised it was the same track used it the African movie.”