Malawian Artists Caught in YouTube Copyright Chaos

The Malawi music scene is on fire again and this time it’s not about hit songs, but about copyright wars and stolen beats.

Just a Yesterday, it was Mercha versus Onesimus when Butter Baby’s team flagged Mercha’s song Koso on YouTube, accusing him of stealing the instrumental for Running Mate. The track was immediately pulled down, leaving fans in shock.

Mercha hit back on social media, saying he was unfairly targeted  but later, it was revealed that both artists had used the same YouTube beat from a Ghanaian producer identified as Klasik Beatz without paying him.

In the end, both teams were forced to settle and pay the rightful owner, allowing their songs to have no copyright strike.

But just when fans thought the dust had settled, a fresh storm has hit. The brand-new track “Nyengo Zonse” by Kineo and Aidfest, featuring Eli Njuchi, has mysteriously disappeared from YouTube  barely hours after it dropped and had already clocked over 100K views in less than 12 hours.

Why? A well-known Afrobeat producer, simply identified as GL Producer, has come forward claiming he created the original instrumental but was never paid nor credited . In a bold Facebook post, GL accused the artists of “reproducing his beat to Tricky Beats without clearance” and confirmed that he has taken legal action for copyright infringement.

“I worked on Nyengo Zonse about seven months ago. I wasn’t compensated, and my rights were ignored. Another producer remade my beat illegally. Now we’ve filed a lawsuit, and the song has been removed from Spotify and YouTube until our demands are met,” GL wrote.

This scandal has sparked heated debate among Malawian fans  with many asking whether local artists are taking copyright laws seriously or if this is just another case of “borrow now, explain later.”