After the cover of Rolling Stone India’s August issue, featuring singers Dhee and Shan Vincent de Paul, who released the songs Enjoy Enjaami and Neeye Oli via the music label maajja, garnered criticism for ignoring lyricist Arivu despite his contribution to those songs, allegations surfaced that Arivu was not paid for his work.
Noel Kirthiraj, CEO and co-founder of maajja, said, in an exclusive chat with Silverscreen India, that maajja’s model helps “artists maximise monetisation of the content that’s rightfully theirs and help develop a sustainable income stream as opposed to a one-time token payment.”
He also cleared the air on the various allegations and accusations that have been thrown around with respect to Arivu and his work with maajja.
What triggered the issue:
On Saturday, Rolling Stone India published a cover story featuring Dhee and Shan. However, Arivu, the independent singer and rapper who wrote the lyrics of Enjoy Enjaami and performed it with Dhee and co-wrote the lyrics of Neeye Oli with Shan, is not featured in the cover photo nor was he mentioned in the tweet that promoted the article.
Many on social media called out the magazine for ignoring Arivu. Among these was filmmaker Pa Ranjith, whose film Sarpatta Parambarai features Neeye Oli. He wrote: “Arivu, the lyricist of Neeye Oli and singer as well as the lyricist of Enjoy Enjaami has once again been invisiblised.”
Enjoy Enjaami is produced by music composer Santhosh Narayanan, who also composed Neeye Oli.
Allegations that Arivu was not paid for his work on Enjoy Enjaami:
As the issue began to blow up, allegations spread that the Arivu was not paid for the project. Writer Shalin Maria Lawrence tweeted, “There is a word that Arivu was not paid for the Enjoy Enjaami project. Not for the lyrics, not for the singing. Nothing. Can maajja deny it?”
Noel replied to her tweet saying, “maajja’s ethos is to empower artists with rights to their songs. This is to eliminate precisely this practice of artists giving up rights for a nominal fee. Artists own the rights & share the revenue earned on an ongoing basis, instead of a token payment. No artists were paid.
This led to several people questioning if this was fair practice and demanding to know how much each artist was paid.
Response from maajja clarifying their revenue model:
When Silverscreen India reached out to Noel to understand how maajja operates, he said, “As we all know, the music industry in India is intertwined with the movie industry. This dependency has led to various practices that have become the norm and are widely adopted. In our view, many of these practices are not in the best interest of the artists in the long run. When you look at the typical compensation model, artists are paid a fee in exchange for rights to their creation – artists are treated as contractors, where the creative work is commissioned under an agreement as work made for hire.”
One of the core principles of maajja, Noel said, is to allow artists to own 100% of their intellectual property. “We do not take over the rights by paying the artists. Instead, we help artists maximise monetisation of the content that’s rightfully theirs and help develop a sustainable income stream as opposed to a one-time token payment. This is a well-established and proven model in the music business in the West as well as in many other industries involving intellectual property,” he added.
Clarification on the Rolling Stone cover controversy:
Asked if maajja was aware of the Rolling Stone cover design and what their stand on that issue is, Noel said the aim of the cover story is not to promote any particular song(s). “The story covers our roster of core maajja artists like Arivu alongside Navz-47, established names like Santhosh Narayanan and the legendary AR Rahman, who is the co-founder of maajja, in addition to Shan Vincent de Paul and Dhee. All artists involved, including Arivu, responded to questions and we had provided press photos at the request of Rolling Stone when they reached out about doing this story.”
Adding that they were “excited by the opportunity to spotlight some of the amazing talent” that the platform has worked with, Noel said that it is “unfortunate” that people drew conclusions without reading the actual story.
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Earlier on Thursday, Shan issued a statement saying that he and Dhee were on the magazine cover to promote his album Made in Jaffna and Dhee’s upcoming English debut album, respectively, which he said would be the first independent albums released on maajja.
Confusion over credits for Arivu in the official video of Enjoy Enjaami:
Another criticism that emerged was that Arivu is not credited as the lyricist for the song Enjoy Enjaami in the YouTube description of the official video uploaded by maajja. There was also outrage over the artist listing saying “Dhee ft. Arivu” (Dhee featuring Arivu) as people felt that Dhee being credited as the main artist amounted to the sidelining of Arivu despite his greater contribution to the song.
Noel explained that the practice of specifying the lyricist is an outdated one that stems from cinema and music being intertwined in India. “In movies, one person writes the lyrics, someone else sings, and a different person is seen on screen. So there’s a need for explicitly naming the lyricist. In the case of independent music, the lyricist is very much part of the song as the performing artist. Also credit and YouTube description are two different things. If Arivu is not credited as the lyricist, how come everyone knows clearly that Arivu is the lyricist?”
He also pointed out that for Neeye Oli, which has Tamil lyrics written by Arivu but performed by Navz-47, they have ensured this nuance is not lost in the YouTube description.
“Arivu’s role and contribution to Enjoy Enjaami is undeniable. The YouTube description does not determine whether someone is credited or how someone is compensated,” he added.
As for the reason for the artist credits naming Dhee ahead of Arivu, Noel said it goes back to the origin of Enjoy Enjaami. “We asked Dhee to do a song with Santhosh Narayanan as producer. They were excited and Dhee wanted Arivu to be part of the song. So it was Dhee’s song and she invited Arivu to collaborate, and the credits reflect that. It all comes down to who is the artist that initiated the project – in this case, it was Dhee.”
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Several attempts by Silverscreen India to reach Arivu failed. Dhee and Santhosh Narayanan have not commented on the issue yet.