Sidney sacks NDC over ‘Our Money’

Ghana’s controversial hiplife artiste, Sidney Ofori aka Barima has fired a stern warning to the National Democratic Congress (NDC), threatening to drag the party to court if it continued to use his ‘Africa Money’ hit track for its political campaigns. Watch Africa Money by Sidney feat Morris Babyface

Sidney, in an interview with Dally Guide yesterday, said in spite of his call on political parties not to use the song for campaign purposes, the NDC had totally ignored him and was using the song as if the party had bought the copyright.

“My music is crying and I want the NDC to stop using it for political campaigns because it is affecting me,” Sydney noted.

When asked to give evidence, the hiplife artiste said he had a video footage of the NDC using the song for campaign purposes at Wa in the Upper West Region and he had personally seen the party use the ‘Africa Money’ track for campaigns in the Central and Greater Accra regions.

Barima Sydney explained that though he had friends on either side of the political divide, the NDC’s use of the song was adversely affecting his career as a musician, as many of his fans had labeled the track an “NDC song”.

“Just last month, I was in Assin Fosu for a show and when we were going round advertising the show, the NDC also had its pick-ups moving round playing the ‘Africa Money oga de chop am waa waa’ song and many people started saying that I was coming to do an NDC programme and true to their words, not many people turned up for the show.

“I go to parties and when the song is being played, some people leave the dance floor because they attach the song to a particular party.

Meanwhile I have not given any party the right to use my song,” he explained.

The musician disclosed that sometime ago, a Nigerian journalist was interviewing him at the Paloma Hotel in Accra and to his surprise many NDC-branded pick-up vehicles paraded the Ringway blasting the ‘Africa Money’ song till the journalist asked him if he had sold the song to the party.

“That was the day the NDC brought many new pick-up vehicles to their Headquarters near the Paloma Hotel,” he said.

Barima said during the last election, he sold his ‘Scent no’ track to the New Patriotic Party (NPP) and did not make much money from the song as many of his fans stopped buying the CDs.