Former dancehall deejay turned gospel artiste Sista Sasha, formerly Sasha in dancehall circles, took to Instagram recently to accuse veteran producer Gussie Clarke of skimming from her earnings when she was still a dancehall artiste. She made the accusatory statements during an Instagram Live session last Friday, January 22, with Mr. Vegas.
Sasha said that she was a young and naive artiste who ended up signing contracts without having understood what her rights were as a creative. According to her, the first deal was a 50 percent publishing deal for five years. That was in 1995. During the Live, she said, “I definitely had no clue about dem thing deh … Yuh nuh know nothing bout nuh publishing, yuh nuh know ’bout nuh royalties and nobody nah educate yuh pan dat.” She added, “A God mercy and grace make me still a eat from it (her work under Clarke’s contract) but weh me a eat, mi shoulda a eat more.”
The Jamaica Star asked Clarke about the alleged deals, and he has flatly denied that he had anything to do with short-changing the artiste. In an interview, he said, “She signed a publishing agreement which is a songwriter’s agreement. At that point in time, the deal was 50 percent to the writer, 50 percent to the publisher.”
According to him, she has received over $4.5 million since then. He added that he had the evidence that she did in the form of the cheque numbers. He also explained that she wouldn’t receive an exact 50 percent of earnings because of things like legal costs relating to anything that arises. “If someone wants to sample the song etc, and we have to get lawyers to go over contracts, and so on, we don’t bill back any of those costs to her,” he added.
He even disclosed that the last payment made out to Sista Sasha was issued last October and that she received over $300,000.
“We affi pay her everything we agreed to when it is due to her even when the terms in the 1995 contract expired. Anything in regards to those works, we are legally bound and obligated to honor them because we still maintain administrative control over all the songs done during that period,” he explained.
He said if she could provide proof that he intentionally did not pay her, he would pay her 10,000 times the amount that she could prove. He added, “She waste two years on lawyer only to be paid the same money that was promised after receiving all the paperwork etc, that I submitted.”
