Veteran highlife musician Rex Omar says a cassette pirate in Kumasi used proceeds from his breakthrough song Habiba to build a house, while he received no money despite the record selling 30,000 copies.
Omar described the experience at the Royal Senchi Hotel in Akosombo on Saturday, November 7, during the maiden Black Star Fashion Week. He said the encounter became a major influence on his long-running campaign for stronger copyright protection and fairer royalty payments for musicians in Ghana.
The musician, whose real name is Rex Owusu Marfo, later became a prominent figure in the country’s copyright movement. In March 2017, he was elected chairman of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO), serving two terms while advocating reforms to the way artists’ royalties are collected and distributed.
Omar said his career began with two unsuccessful gospel albums. He turned to secular highlife after his church refused to finance further studio sessions, but an individual outside the church eventually paid for the recording that produced Habiba.
“That is how I shifted from gospel to secular, and I recorded Habiba, and it became a hit,” Omar said.
He has previously warned that 97 per cent of Ghanaian musicians earn nothing from their work. His own experience, he explained, demonstrated the scale of the problem.
Although sales of Habiba rose first beyond 20,000 copies and later reached 30,000, Omar said he saw none of the financial benefit associated with the song’s success.
He recalled walking through Adum in Kumasi when a stranger approached him, embraced him and lifted him off the ground.
“He said, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have built my house,” Omar told the audience in Akosombo.
When Omar asked how that was possible, the man explained that he had bought one of the musician’s songs and recorded it on cassette. The proceeds from selling those copies, he said, had enabled him to construct a house.
“Then I said, how? He said, you see, I bought one of your songs, and I recorded it on cassette, and out of that I built a house.”
“So you see, me, the creator, the hustler who has released this album and I’ve sold 30,000 copies, and I don’t even know where the money is; somebody has built a house out of my sweat,” Omar added.
Omar was appointed in February 2025 to lead the government’s Black Star Experience cultural initiative. He shared the story as industry groups continue to push for GHAMRO’s royalty collection system to be digitised for local artists.
