Just as I was preparing to leave the office yesterday (Jan 23) afternoon, while scrolling down my timeline (like we all do at work, right), I bumped into a tweet by Tumi Molekane: “VIOLATING IS WHAT THEY’RE MAKING A CODE! Tiwa Savage jacked ASINAMALI video and MTV playing that sh*t! Ain’t Nothing sacred”. I knew, it was on on T’s timeline once again! Not knowing what on God’s earth is a Tiwa Savage, I went straight to youtube and searched for the name. Several videos popped up and I prayed that the one I clicked on was the one Tumi was slandering the director, Clarence Peters for. Lucky for me, it was.

VIOLATING IS WHAT THEY’RE MAKING A CODE! Tiwa Savage jacked ASINAMALI video and MTV playing that shit! Ain’t Nothing sacred

— Tumi(Volume)Molekane (@TumiMolekane) January 23, 2014

  The video of the Don Jazzy-featuring song, “Eminado” – a typical Naija booty-hop pop tune – is a mere stylistic and visual resemblance of Tumi and The Volume’s “Asinamli” video. The vintage nature of the The Tumi and The Volume video which, according to Tumi was an ode to Malian photographer, Seydou Keita, was what director, Clarence plagiarized. The difference between the two is that the TATV video is shown in black and white while the Tiwa one is Serpia-blue-toned, sporadically appearing in colour and of course other interpolations.

I’m not precious about sampling or wing inspired by something, ASINAMALI video was an ode to Seydou Keita the great Malian photographer — Tumi(Volume)Molekane (@TumiMolekane) January 23, 2014

T went onto to urge his followers to shine a light on the issue at hand because by not doing so, they would be encouraging it. I guess that’s what I’m doing by writing this article. Or not? Okay, cool.

This is what’s wrong with AFRICA! We reward bullshit mediocrity! If you dont shine a light on this Clarence Peters plagiarism you support it — Tumi(Volume)Molekane (@TumiMolekane) January 23, 2014

In typical twitter-Tumi style, the slander extended to a couple of more tweets. He even went to tweet VUZU alerting the TV channel of the case of intellectual theft.

@vuzutv you want a story! Clarence Peters stole Tiwa Savage video from Tumi and the Volume ASINAMALI video.

— Tumi(Volume)Molekane (@TumiMolekane) January 23, 2014

Hey, I will leave you to do the judging. Watch the videos below.

Written by Sabelo Mkhabela
twitter: @SabzaPassword