Social media especially twitter is agog over an alleged impostor with the stage name “Wisekid” who pulled a fast one on unsuspecting Wizkid fans.
Wisekid with the real name Hosea Yohanna was alleged to have uploaded a replica of Wizkid’s Made in Lagos album on apple music, thereby diverting traffic to his music.
The tracklist of the replica album dubbed “Lasgidi Made” shares identical title to Wizkid’s album, hoodwinking unsuspecting music lovers, especially Wizkid fans.
What appears surprising is most streamers either didn’t notice the difference or clicked on his album in error.
Checks by The Nation also revealed the dubbed album had amassed over 9 million streams translating to a profit of about 30 million naira monthly in streams and sales revenue being shared with him.
This was brought to the notice of the public when fans shared screenshots of their Apple Music replay.
A twitter user, Chemical Brother, shared screenshots and stated that even after listening to Wizkid for over 26 hours, Apple Music distributed the traffic to both Wizkid and Wisekid.
According to African Facts, Wisekid has been raking in N30million monthly from Digital stores since he uploaded the replicated album in October 2020.
Wisekid claimed Freeme Digital has been the one distributing all his songs.
Reacting to the allegations Wisekid said: “Pls I don’t want wahala oo .. I’m just an upcoming artist I know nothing about this and please am not the one distributing wizkid album on apple music.
“I have my company that distributes my music for me so I know nothing about this news spreading all over the internet. Thank u.
“I don’t know who do that oo. I just access my apple artist name I saw streams I just wanted to get people check me out nothing more oo.
“I didn’t share wizkid streams oo. I don’t know who that oo” he added.
But Freeme Digital, in a statement denied, distributing his music.
It said: “It has come to our notice that an artiste by the name of “Wisekid” claims to distribute an album titled ‘Lasgidi Made’ with our organization.
“While it is true that he distributes some of his contents through our organisation, we will like to make it categorically clear that the said, ‘Lasgidi Made’ album was not distributed via our platform.
“We will be deleting the rest of Wisekid’s content on our platform and we have informed our legal team to immediately commence investigation on the issue and prosecute the matter to the full extent of the law.”
Social media users especially Wizkid fans, while calling out the artiste, wondered how he pulled the stunt on many unsuspecting fans listening to Wizkid’s song on Digital stores by Refixing all Wizkid’s “Made In Lagos” album.
A Wizkid fan wrote: “The part that killed me is that he did not even try this with upcoming artistes or smaller artistes.. Wizkid Really Dfkm”.
Another fan said: “I don’t even know what to say about this. You mean WizKid and his entire management had no idea of this? Not even his record label? I’m so angry right now.”
Asiwaju Lerry said: “So one certain Wisekid has been illegally sharing streams and album sales with Wizkid’s Made in Lagos yet the album still remain in its top spot?? Imagine if there was nothing like such!”
@JoeyAkan said: “WiseKid failed one cardinal rule, that’s why he was caught: Don’t talk while eating.
“Because I don’t know what level of village people syndrome will make a man who has struck illegal gold to publicly announce his numbers on social media.”
@Itzbasito tweeted: “I don’t think people understand what Wisekid did, it’s not about the tracks titles, the content of the tracks are Wizkid’s, not like the guy released his own songs with same title as Wizkid’s”
@IsimahOdeh said: “That Wisekid guy is evil. What he is doing is very stupid and cruel. How could he be stealing N30 million monthly off Wizkid’s music by copying his lyrics and names of his albums & songs? He has made N30 million monthly by copying Wizkid’s music.
