An up and coming artiste, Johnson
Oluwadamilare Michael popularly known as
Portah has accused Sean Tizzle and his
producer, D’tunes of stealing a song from him
which was added to Sean Tizzle’s debut
album.
The Ibadan based artiste who is still a student
of lead city university studying economics
stated that he had recorded his own version
of the song about two years ago but gave the
song to D’tunes in the beginning of this year
while seeking for his help in helping to
promote it. He made this known to NET;
Last year, around July 2013, I went for an
interview at Star Fm in Ibadan with Vector,
myself and Sean Tizzle, then he just started
promoting his ‘Sho le’ song, they just shot the
video for the song. That day, Sean Tizzle was
with D’tunes, so while I was trying to make
my way to greet D’tunes, he recognized me
and was like wow. Portah, what’s up? I was
surprised that he (D’tunes) knew me, he said
he was on my BBM before, so he asked about
my record label and I told him I don’t have a
label yet, so he was like wow, he thought I
had a record label, if he had known I wasn’t
under any record label, he would have signed
me before he signed Sean, so he said it’s not
too late, that he’ll get me on the label....
So we agreed to hook up the next day in
Lagos. The next day I came to Lagos to meet
him, we met at The palms in Lekki, that day,
he came with Sean Tizzle and Rico White, we
watched a movie, he paid for it and from
there we went to his house, so he was like,
right now he can’t sign me, but if I can give
him sometime, he’ll get me a record deal
because he knows a lot of people looking for
artistes to sign. So since last year we didn’t
see or talk, he didn’t call me till January 2
this year when he left a message for me on
Instagram that I should call him urgently....
‘So I called him immediately and he asked
where I was, I told him I was in Ibadan, and
he asked if I could come to Lagos and I was
like ‘sure I can come. So he told me to bring
my songs so we could talk about my project,
he asked how many songs I had and I told
him I have about 21 songs, so he said I should
bring everything so he can listen to them and
we’ll talk. When I dropped the phone, I was
very happy so I burnt the songs on two CDs
then I came to Lagos. When I saw him, he
took me to his studio; he copied all the songs
to his system including my released and
unreleased songs. Then he was like, actually
he’s not the one that wants to sign me, that
he has a friend in UK that wants to start a
label, but he wants him to be the front man
for the label, so he said when the guy comes
back he’ll call me over so we can all meeting
and make a deal. That day, he told me Sean
Tizzle was dropping his album in April and he
even played all the songs for me because at
that time the album was already set but the
song ‘Perfect Gentleman’ wasn’t recorded yet,
I remember very well that Soundcity’s DJ
Shabsy was with us that day at his studio in
Lekki, around Osapa London area. Then he
asked if I have any song I could write for Sean
Tizzle so he could include it in his album, and
I was like sure, I can do that. So, since that
day he didn’t get back to me at all, and
whenever I call him, he doesn’t pick up my
calls, if I send him texts, he won’t reply....
I felt really bad, stupid (actually) because, it’s
foolish of me for at my age to take all my
songs to you and copy on his system, I’m very
well known in Ibadan, Oyo State as a whole
and its environs. To be honest, I actually
thought he wanted to work with me and help
me, but he just changed everything. Initially, I
didn’t want to say anything about it but
people around me that knew the whole story
and process were like no, I should voice out
because if I let it go, he still has 21 of my
songs and he can still use others whenever he
likes....
When asked what’s next for him, Portah said,
‘For me, I don’t think (about) D’tunes. He’s
been on my BBM for almost four years but we
became close about 2 years ago and he’s been
talking about deals and getting me a record
deal but it didn’t happen. The sad part is that
D’tunes knows me very well, he knows that I
sing, I write and even produce, he could have
just told me that he wanted to sample it for
Sean and honestly I won’t object.
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