By Ermias A.

In recent years people of Addis have seen their means of entertainment become more bearable when it comes to what they get from the airwaves. Addition of new stations on the FM airwave has fostered competition and provided listeners with new and exciting shows.

One such show is by Seifu Fantahun on Saturday nights. Although Seifu has a two-hour afternoon show on weekdays and a three-hour show on Saturday nights, what has become the talk of town in the past weeks has been a one-hour segment out of the Saturday night's show, roughly translated "Why Lie". This show aims to expose singers who have appropriated melody or lyrics from other songs and pass them off as their own.

The show has become an instant hit among the public and has drawn controversy and reached its zenith in a short time. The show has so far exposed big names in the music industry by playing songs which have plagiarized material alongside the originals. Teddy Afro, Amelmal Abate, Abinet Agonafer are some singers whose work have been exposed.

Singer Teddy Afro has reached mega celebrity status among the public and is known to stir up controversy in recent months with his alleged vehicular manslaughter to his political laden lyrics.

He is also said to be really a good lyricist and songwriter he became famous for when he released a single overnight to laud Kenenisa Bekele for his Olympic win. Since then the singer himself has gone to perpetuate that image. In his recently released CD which contains his new single, Gize Lekulu, which became an instant hit from day one, he has put these words "Song and lyrics done in one night with the help of God".

But to the surprise of many, last week the melody of the very song he claimed to have done overnight came into question as Seifu's show played a religious song with the exact melody.

The show started playing songs of Teddy Afro which bear striking similarity to other songs. According to some newspapers, this then led to Teddy announcing that he is going to sue Seifu for defamation.

 Another paper picked up the story and run its own analysis of Teddy's songs and claimed that they have found more plagiarized material. Then to top it all, during last weeks show, Seifu announced that he has gotten an old vinyl record made thirty years ago which is similar to one of the popular songs of his previous album.

The whole week after the show the people had nothing else to talk about but Teddy and his allegedly plagiarized material. Everywhere I go that was all people had to talk about. As the Amharic saying "talk breeds more talk" goes, I came across a material that points a similar finger towards Seifu as he has been pointing at others.

It is known that Seifu released a movie a few months back titled, roughly translated, "Wanted." What I came across is movie entitled "Emmet's Mark". In this movie, the central character Emmett Young, a detective whose ambition and drive are thrown up in the air when he learns that he has contracted a terminal illness. As Young grapples with his impending death, a mysterious stranger by the name of Marlowe appears and makes the detective an offer he's not sure he can refuse: Marlowe will have Young killed at a random time and place, saving him the agony of a slow and lingering death by disease. But Emmet discovers that the hospital has made a mistake and wants to stop his assassin.

In the same way, in Seifu's Amharic movie, the central character played by Seifu loses his love and by misfortunate series of events thinks he has lost the money he has borrowed from a mafia type loan shark. Wishing to spare himself the agony of killing himself, he contracts an assassin to kill him off at an unspecified time.  

I am no expert and don't know much about what constitutes plagiarism when it comes to materials in the movies. It is possible that people are influenced by what they come across in life whether they know it or not. We have definitely seen movies that have similar plot lines but differ in their story telling, twist and ending. This could be one of those incidents and then again it might not.

But as this new material and story reaches the public, it no doubt will stir up another batch of controversy and very public reactions across newspapers. Will Seifu come out and admit that he was influenced by the movie? Could it be a coincidence? Surly the next weeks will be interesting to those who have been following this issue from the beginning. Will the credibility of the show suffer from this new information? It is to be seen. But the show is a truly new beginning in a market that is full of copyright violation. This will hopefully pave the way for other similar mediums to question the veracity of materials not only in the music industry but in others as well. In the meantime, to all the singers and authors out there "Why Lie?" should be a constant reminder that people are now aware.