Joe Mettle Urges Team Eternity and Kwame Mickey to Resolve ‘Defe Defe’ Conflict Amicably

Contemporary Ghanaian gospel artiste, Joe Mettle has called for Team Eternity Ghana and Kwame Mickey to come to a peaceful resolution regarding the copyright infringement dispute over the song ‘Defe Defe’.

The song by Team Eternity Ghana has gained significant popularity on social media, accumulating over two million views on YouTube since its release on May 1, 2024. However, Kwame Mickey claims that the group illegally sampled a song with the same name from Hallelujah Voices in 2004, written by Osuani Afrifa and produced by Kaakyire Music Productions.

If Team Eternity Ghana does not acknowledge the original creators, Mickey has threatened legal action.

Joe Mettle, speaking on Citi FM’s Breakfast Show, emphasized the importance of registering songs and utilizing proper publishing platforms to prevent such controversies.

He highlighted the significance of preserving old songs and suggested that resolving such disputes amicably is crucial, especially when it involves sampling rather than the entire song.

“I think that the songs when released must be registered, put on proper publishing platforms, it helps even if it happens that somebody samples or does anything, the system will pick it from the source, nothing will be a problem.

“Because you see, part of some of these reasons too are the reasons why we are losing a lot of old songs because some songs should not die. It has to be rerecorded,” he said.

He continued by saying, “I also understand the fact that permission needs to be sought but even the one you need to ask to record you will not know. Sometimes you can search and search, but you won’t find anything, we are losing a lot of songs so for me, I think even with this Team Eternity issue, they could have just solved it amicably because it wasn’t the whole song, it was a sample,”