A lawyer for Ghanaian music label Ground Up Chale has outlined the contractual framework that governed its relationship with award-winning rapper Kwesi Arthur, amid an escalating public dispute over revenues, ownership rights and the use of archival material.
Jonathan K. Amable, counsel for Ground Up Chale, said the agreement between the parties was structured around a “net profit” model, under which expenses were first recouped from gross revenue before profits were shared. He explained that this differed from more common industry arrangements, where production and promotional costs are typically recovered solely from an artist’s share.
“In this case, expenses were taken care of out of gross revenue,” Amable said, adding that the approach meant both parties bore the impact of costs, with only the остат remaining amount distributed as net profit.
According to Amable, the initial four-year contract ended in 2021. At that point, the parties renewed the deal for a further two years and renegotiated the profit split to reflect Kwesi Arthur’s increased prominence in the music industry. Under the original agreement, songs released before 2021 were subject to a 60/40 net split, while releases from 2021 onward were governed by a revised 50/50 arrangement.
Amable said Kwesi Arthur’s album Son of Jacob was released after the renewal and therefore fell under the 50/50 terms. The album, he noted, was distributed through Platoon under a distribution agreement signed in 2020 and remained in production and copyright clearance stages through 2021 and 2022. He said a copyright claim related to the track “Winning” was resolved before the album’s release.
The lawyer said Kwesi Arthur left Ground Up Chale in 2022, shortly after the release of Son of Jacob, despite having one year remaining on the renewed contract. Attempts to formalise a termination of the agreement did not succeed, he added.
lawyer Amable said the dispute between the parties has centred on two main issues. The first concerns ownership and exploitation rights over Son of Jacob, which he said was released under Ground Up Chale’s contractual and distribution structure. The second relates to the alleged unauthorised use of photographs and video footage created during Kwesi Arthur’s time under contract.
He said the label considers those materials its intellectual property and claims the footage, some dating back to the artist’s early career, was used without permission to promote a current project. Amable said Ground Up Chale asked the artist to stop using the materials and later issued an invoice of $150,000, which he said reflected the commercial exploitation of the footage, not a fee for the artist’s use of his own image.
“This is about intellectual property rights,” Amable said, adding that permission had neither been sought nor granted.