Just last week, American R&B diva Ciara announced a collaboration with the MMMG signed Tekno titled ‘Freak Me ’
Upon the release of the song, a large number of fans were quick to point out the striking similarities between the new song ‘ Freak Me’ and a song on Tiwa Savage’s 2015 album RED titled ‘ Before Nko’.
Tiwa Savage who apparently got wind of the reports is vehemently angry about the situation
NET can exclusively confirm that neither Tekno nor Ciara obtained clearance or permission from Tiwa Savage before infringing on her copyright
Meanwhile, Ciara excitedly shared the artwork for the single, while Tekno refrained from doing so and the reason behind his silence cannot be far fetched as an unnamed member of Tiwa Savage’s camp revealed that Tekno is someone Tiwa Savage she considered a friendly colleague; not in the least because they both are Pepsi ambassadors and know each other well.
The source said;
‘We were surprised that they went that route. They didn’t even just sample some strings, the beat and lyrics of the hook are basically the same. Tiwa is extremely upset because it seems like a rip off of her sweat.’
Asked if there were any enquiries from the Ubi Franklin led MMMG, the answer was negative. ‘They didn’t ask or inform us before the song was made. As a matter of fact, we reached out to them when we heard the song but they didn’t do us the courtesy of even responding.
This is not how to do things. Tekno himself is not sharing links to the song as much as his boss Ubi is. This is wrong‘,
He added too that ‘It may not have been in Ciara’s place to know that the song belonged to someone else but the onus was on Tekno as the featured act and producer (who we believe gave the song to her anyway) to inform her.’
On our part, we contacted Ubi Franklin before filing this report. Calls were not answered and text messages sent to him were not replied at the time of publishing this.
Although Tiwa Savage (along with Don Jazzy, his brother
DPrince ) was listed as one of the composers on streaming sites such as TIDAL, she believes that does not suffice as ‘permission’.
It is the second time this year that Tekno would be accused of song theft. In May, the duo of
Mountain Black and Med Melon called him out for appropriating their early 2000’s hit Jogodo . Tekno did not deny the charge but soon after was seen with the singers in an apparent reconciliatory mode.
It may be recalled that he was also criticized for interpolating parts of 50cent’s In Da Club in his Go single.
