Ghanaian music duo Lali X Lola has made an appeal to the Minister for Communication, Digital Technology and Innovations, Samuel Nartey George to help address non-payment of streaming revenue with Boomplay, a digital music streaming platform.

According to Lali X Lola, their distributors have not received any reliable accounting or revenue from Boomplay since April 2023, despite repeated attempts to engage the platform.

The duo expressed their concerns about transparency, accountability, and fair compensation for Ghanaian artistes.

"When such platforms fail to meet basic obligations to rights holders timely, especially by withholding payments, it borders on exploitation of Ghanaian creative talent,” they wrote in a statement.

Lali x Lola emphasized the importance of platforms like Boomplay in providing opportunities for artistes to reach fans and grow digitally.

"Making and promoting music is neither easy nor inexpensive. It takes time, effort, and significant financial investment—often from the artistes themselves. It is therefore unjust and disheartening when musicians are denied revenue for their work,” they noted.

The duo respectfully urged the Minister to investigate this issue and establish better regulatory oversight over digital service providers operating in Ghana's digital and creative economy.

They expressed confidence that with the Minister's leadership and commitment to digital fairness and innovation, measures can be introduced to protect and justly compensate Ghanaian creatives.

"We are confident that with your leadership and commitment to digital fairness and innovation, measures can be introduced to ensure that Ghanaian creatives are protected and justly compensated by digital platforms," Lali x Lola stated in their appeal.

Lali x Lola exits Boomplay

Lali X Lola also opened up about their decision to remove their music from Boomplay due to non-payment of streaming revenue. According to the duo, they instructed their distributor to take off their songs from the platform after realizing that they hadn't been paid for some time on a phone call interview on Daybreak Hitz with DJ Slim.

"We gave an instruction to our Distro to take off our song for this year of Boomplay because we realised that Boomplay has not been paying us for some time now and we decided that it was important that we make a statement with that because artistes are supposed to get paid for their work because making music isn't for free I mean it's investment you know," Lali X Lola explained.

The manager of the duo, Kimathi, also spoke about the issue in the interview on Daybreak Hitz.

"We realise that we look at the streaming numbers like for Boomplay, we have almost a million streaming numbers. But when we go to the back end of our form, our distributors, we are not getting that information,” he said.

He also stated that their distributor was not getting reliable information or payments from Boomplay, and questioned why their music should stay on the platform.

"So we wrote to them, sent a message to them and then they sent a message back to us saying that they don't seem to be getting reliable information. That's their problem, getting reliable information from Boomplay. And they are also not paying and accounting for the stream. So our question was that why do we continue to put our music on Boomplay for the streams, etc.?,” he asked.

Lali X Lola's manager revealed that they had instructed their distributor to remove their music from Boomplay for 2025 and instead focus on Audiomark, where their numbers were increasing. 

Kimathi indicated that even though they have taken their catalogue from from Boomplay, they would urge powers that be step in and have a meeting with them, so their recent operations don't affect more Ghanaian artistes.

He also mentioned that they had reached out to Hon. Sam George, hoping that he would take notice of the issue.

"We sent the thing on Friday through their email and then we also sent it through the IG. But we actually today sending the hard copy. Honestly, you know, with the ministries, you don't expect them to respond that quickly. I'm sure he's even now hearing of it," Lali X Lola's manager stated.

The duo's appeal highlights the need for better protection and compensation for Ghanaian artistes in the digital music industry.