Kenyan rapper Nonini has resigned as the board chairman of Performers Rights Society of Kenya (PRISK). His resignation is due to internal wrangles.
PRISK is licensed by the Kenya Copyright Board to represent performers in musical and dramatic works.
The body is tasked with collecting and distributing royalties.
In his resignation letter, Nonini claimed that internal politics have crippled PRISK, and the body no longer serves the best interest of Kenyan musicians.
“This letter serves as my official resignation as chairman of PRISK effective 8th August 2018. It is my opinion that the PRISK board and by extension KAMP board no longer serve the best interests of Kenyan music artists and I cannot continue serving the PRISK board as Chairman, on a board where politics of not collecting royalty in line with KECOBO directives is more important than the future of the Kenyan music industry collecting royalty jointly,” Nonini wrote.
He said that his efforts to try and compel PRISK to follow the law hit a snag hence the reason behind his resignation.
“I reported to the board of directors that over this past weekend the KAMP/PRISK licensing team had invoiced a client’s event manually and against the policy that is in place to a joint collection. What was disturbing is that the invoice was not a joint MPAKE/KAMP/PRISK invoice but a KAMP/PRISK invoice only. This is an illegal trend of KAMP/PRISK collections excluding MPAKE has been going on for some time despite objections I have raised,” wrote Nonini.