Even without the saying of a prophet, there seems to have been a rift between gospel artist Mercy Chinwo and her record label, say ex record label, Eezee Global Record Label. If you are a fan of Mercy and follow all her songs, you would have noticed that in her recent project, Elevated, the traditional “Eezee Concept” intro has been replaced with something like “GNT Nation” (not sure whether I got that right). Yeah, sure, I did. GNT Nation is the new Mercy.
I guess you probably knew the record label courtesy of this artist. Personally, I first heard the intro “Eezee Concept” from Mercy’s 2017 hit song, Excess Love”. And even at one point, I thought Mercy owned that label and was probably an independent artist. I was wrong.
The record label, which is arguably the biggest gospel label in Nigeria, is owned by one Ezekiel Onyedikachi, Thank God, and houses some of the country’s finest gospel artists, such as Judikay, G.U.C., Chris Morgan, Chidinma Ekile, and Mercy Chinwo, who is no longer with the label.
What could have happened?
What went wrong?
Why did Mercy leave?
Full Gist
Following Mercy’s cryptic post months ago, we guessed something was up some time ago, but couldn’t figure out what it was. In that post, the artist asked for God’s protection from people who were being strategic with her while she was real with them.
But we guessed it was just a random post. No, it wasn’t. Something went down. We got a glimpse of that through one of the singer’s recent music videos.
Mercy Chinwo, who has been off from the music scene, recently returned with a music single titled “Confidence,”, which was followed up by a video. In the music video, Mercy Chinwo talked about her journey in the music industry, from winning the Nigerian Idol to getting signed to a record label that swindled her. She further gave an account of how the record label denied her exclusive rights to royalties from all she worked for, how the record deal she signed got manipulated, how she was denied access to all her social media accounts, and how the label made false claims about her health condition just to restrict her from ministering.
It is also reported that the artiste’s past hit songs and videos, which have accumulated millions of views and royalties, have been moved from her YouTube channel to the Eezee Global record label, which claims full ownership of them. Even though Mercy didn’t mention the label’s name, the subtle story’s meaning was abundantly clear.
Recall that a few years after winning the Nigerian idol music contest, Mercy got signed by the Eezee Global Record label and has since then released several songs and videos, which garnered sales and millions of streams and views across various music streaming platforms. However, the artist silently left the label last year without any official announcement. Mercy also unfollowed the label’s boss and some of her labelmates, including Minister G.U.C. and Chidinma.
