Sajjad Ali has had enough of social media chatter about the rights to his music and who he allows to sing his songs. The singer has decided to personally address the controversy surrounding him not letting Pakistan Idol use his music.
In a video shared on Instagram on Tuesday, he explained what intellectual property rights are and how he hadn’t granted them to an Indian programme where two young contestants sang his song ‘Ravi’.
“Recently, I saw this reel from India where these two kids were singing ‘Ravi’ and they’re singing it really well. They did a really good job and I really congratulate them for it. They were on some Indian TV programme, a Punjabi programme, and in the comments some of our people began to say ‘Look, he didn’t let our kids on Pakistan Idol sing his songs but gladly let Indian kids sing them. He permitted them to use his music but wouldn’t do the same for our kids,’” Ali said.
The singer said the song had been used without permission on the show. “They did not ask for permission and I did not grant it, they just played the song. The how and why of it, my legal team will get in touch with them about that.”
Coming to allegations that he deliberately took a public stance against Pakistan Idol , he said he was simply speaking at a concert press conference and was asked about the show by one of the attendees.
He said before the show’s organisers tried to use his music without paying him his due, he had wished the programme well and still believes we need more programmes like it.
Ali said the whole thing had been painted as him “not letting kids sing his songs”, which hurt because he really enjoyed seeing young singers perform on the show. He asked why nobody was going after other artists who refused to hand over the rights to their work.
The singer also took issue with the way social media pages never shared anything positive about him, like the many times artists outside of Pakistan appreciated his songs. “B Praak sang them, Guru Randhawa sang them, Diljit Dosanjh posted ‘Ravi’ so many times, made so many reels. Someday it’s Shreya Ghoshal saying something [about my music], someday it’s Sonu Nigam, nobody picks that up,” he said.
He contended that social media thrives off of controversy, but asked people to “stop dragging your own artists down”.
Ali asked his fans, listeners and people on the internet to refrain from blindly trusting what they saw on social media and not share things without verifying them first.
For singers and musicians, especially ones appearing on shows like Pakistan Idol , he asked them to make their own music instead of singing covers. “That’s how the industry will move forward, otherwise we’ll just keep singing the same songs over and over again,” the singer said.
