‘I never cheated Sefa’ – D-Black asserts

Chief Executive Officer of Black Avenue Muzik, D-Black, has refuted claims that he cheated or took advantage of singer Sefa during her time with the record label.

Speaking in an interview with Nana Romeo on January 22, 2026, the rapper and entrepreneur discussed the challenges artistes encounter when signing others to their labels, describing such arrangements as difficult to sustain.

According to D-Black, it is rare to find an A-list artiste in Ghana who still has another artiste signed to them, stressing that most of such partnerships eventually collapse.

“Look at the big picture, I want to know one A-list artiste in Ghana who has an artiste signed to them currently because I don’t know of any. Every artiste who signed someone has now parted ways. It hardly works out,” he said.

He explained that ego and personal career priorities often make it difficult for established artistes to fully commit to developing new talents.

“To be honest, artistes have ego and it’s very difficult for you to say as an artiste especially when you reach your peak or you’re an A-list artiste.

“To say this year or for the next two years, I’m going to take a backseat in my music career and focus on pushing another talent, a lot of people won’t do that. Since you’re still actively creating music, your priority is yourself,” he stated.

D-Black noted that artistes who sign to labels must understand that while the label invests heavily in their careers, they must also put in maximum effort to succeed.

'Don't take the peace we have in Ghana for granted!' - D-Black

“When you sign an artiste and you’re putting money in, if the artiste doesn’t understand that the label is putting more money in their career, so they need to put in all effort to make the song a hit and not just sit back and depend on the label, then you’ve failed,” he explained.

He continued, “They need to know that no matter how hard someone is pushing for you, they need to push ten times harder than that person.”

Addressing allegations of mistreatment, D-Black emphatically denied cheating Sefa, insisting that his actions were driven by passion rather than profit.

“I never cheated Sefa. There are so many things that I do that are not of the norm,” he stressed.

He disclosed that he structured his contracts differently by including producers, ensuring they benefited continuously from the success of the artistes they worked with.

“I like to add producers to my contracts because I don’t like paying producers off after producing just a beat. If a producer works with us, does several songs or signed to the label as part of the family, as long as the artiste is performing hit songs, the producer gets 5% from every show,” he said.

According to D-Black, this arrangement applied throughout Sefa’s seven-year stay with Black Avenue Muzik, adding that he never enforced recoupment during that period.

“That’s what I did for the whole of Sefa’s career. I did for seven years and I never did recoupment. I did it because I’m passionate about the music even before it became a business,” he added.

FG/EB

Watch the latest episode of Talkertainment with Elsie Lamar and David Oscar Dogbe below: