Diamond Platnumz says he is doing artists a huge favour whenever he moves to sign them to his Wasafi records label.

In the last couple of years, the Tanzanian musician Diamond has been accused of signing artists in the context that he would help transform them into megastars, but while at it, he binds them to long exploitative contracts.

When famed musician Harmonize decided to prematurely terminate his 10-year contract with WCB in 2018 for example, he claimed he did so after realizing it was exploitative.

He was then asked to pay UGX 600m to buy out the remainder of his contract term.
In 2022, Rayvanny was also allowed to terminate his contract believed to be of 10 years after he paid WCB over UGX 1bn as a buyout of the four-year remainder of his contract

Rich Mavoko also accused Diamond of binding him to an exploitative contract when he decided to cut ties with the label.

These claims of Diamond’s exploitative contracts to artistes recently emerged again after he announced the signing of a new artiste to WCB, DVoice.

“If the contracts are exploitative, why is it that these artists when they join WCB, do have nothing and aren’t known, but when they choose to leave, they do that having achieved some level of success? Why is it that when they are asked to pay UGX 900M or UGX 1Bn (as a buyout for the remainder of their contract) they are able to do that if at all these contracts are exploitative,” Diamond poses?

The bejeweled star maintains that artists joining WCB are the ones who stand to benefit more than him.

“If I pick you to be signed to Wasafi then I am doing you a huge favour because I have over 100 artists who want to be signed by me. If anything, I don’t make a lot of money from signed artists, the percentage I get from them is so little,”

Diamond says the only reason he signs artists into contracts is because he will be investing his own money to build their brand and as such he will expect some return on Investment.

“Yes, signing artists is me doing them a favour. But the favour isn’t charity because I am investing lots of millions into building their brands. I could have invested that money into farming or buying land,”
As such the crooner insists that he will never allow an artist to leave WCB just because they feel like it is not unless one runs down his contract.

“For instance, one of the artists who left his YouTube channel used to generate Tsh48 million (Ksh 3 million) monthly. Was I to let go of that kind of money just because he felt like leaving? I have to take my share (60 percent). This is strictly business not charity,” he asserts.