Blaklez On Exposing Radio Stations Who Request Money For Airplay
Blaklez addresses the issue of radio stations ripping off musicians
It has been years now since SA musicians decided to open about local radio stations failing to give them airplay instead playing international songs. Blacklez is one of the latest artists to speak about the issue even raising that radio stations request money from artists in order to give them airplay.
Speaking to TshisaLIVE after initially tweeting that he was appalled by the request to pay payola when he was trying to get his new single on radio.
“I really don’t wanna comment too much on it, all I can say is I have never done it and I will never do it.
“I just found myself in that situation yesterday because we have an album out and we are trying to push a single. The person that we got as our point person to submit, he came to us and said, ‘Well here’s the situation at that particular radio station,” he told TshisaLIVE.
The nature of payola requests is that it usually happens in subtle tones and the people asking for payola usually don’t want paper trails.
This means mentioning names is something that he can’t do because he could easily be sued for defamation.
“Obviously, it is difficult for me to mention names as there’s nothing on paper that could link this person to it. So I don’t want to be in a situation where I get sued or whatever. But we were in a situation like that and I have never and will never do that.”
