Dancehall group Merital Family is the the latest member of the Portmore Empire to depart the group.
In a press release, the group who hails from Montego Bay said they throw in the towel after becoming increasingly fed up with the Empire management.
“For the last year and a half, we ah get stifle, we ah get overpriced, dem a tell people say we de pon tour and we de ya nah go nowhere. We ah suffer, we nah get no promotion, we have kids to feed and me have my mother to take care of,” one of the members of Merital Family said.
“From wah day ya, mi see riddim a mek and no Merital, no Jahvinci not on it and when we call Notnice, him say ‘ah the Teacha set it’. So wah kinda suffocation this? We have been loyal to the organisation, and it is not being loyal to us…no video, no promotion, no recording. Mi fed up and tired. We caan reason or have a number for the man who run the organisation that we are supposed to be signed to,” another group member added.
The group said they missed out on opportunities to meet icons in dancehall because of their affiliation with the Gaza.
“Mi come to do music and sake ah the Empire, we never get to contact certain producers and artistes, or meet with icons in the business like Bounty Killer, just because of the Empire.”
Additionally, the group said Vybz Kartel removed them as the writer of their hit single, “My Money Ha Ha.”
“VP Records called us about doing some promotion of the song, and that’s how we found out it had been sold to a record label. So we called Tarik ‘Russian’ Johnston and asked why him never tell we about the money and he said ‘Kartel ah yu leader, mi think he would let you know’, and then we checked with our publishers and they told us that the credits for the writer of the song was Adidja Palmer and it was produced by Russian, that’s all, no recognition, nothing, what about our publishing and our rights? We have our song before we met Kartel and the song became a hit and we no achieve anything from it.”
Merital Family shot to stardom with their hit single “My Money Ha Ha” on the Stripclub riddim and featured a hilarious Vybz Kartel cameo where he delivers a Santa-like laugh. The song, on the Adidjaheim/NotNice/Concussion labels, hit #1 on several major charts in Jamaica and the Caribbean.
