Amapiano artist PCee (real name is Khulekani Nxumalo) recently took to social media to express his frustrations about the exploitation that is taking place in the Amapiano industry.
PCee went on Instagram Live on April 14 to share that even though he has many hit songs, he has never gotten any money from making those songs.
“The song/songs are very big, but I have never gotten a cent from them. I have never even gotten one rand from those things. Instead, he/she must be the only big artist in SA, and then the rest follows.
“First thing, we have sell-out artists. Last time I checked, we were together in this whole thing. And if no one wants to talk about this, it’s fine; we don’t have to talk about it, but I am tired.
"Even right now, they can see that PCee is about to release. And then they do what? They want this artist to release. So by the time I release there's traffic, they want to create unnecessary traffic. I'm really tired, guys; it's really hurting my feelings,” he revealed.
He shared that the exploiters stole his style/way of performing and presented it as theirs to the public.
“You stole a movement from us. You are using it somewhere else. And then you present it to people like it's your own movement. Hell no, you stole it from me. You stole it from us. We had that movement before.”
PCee Breaks Silence on Amapiano Exploitation: “I’m on the biggest Amapiano hits, but I don’t see a cent.”, amapiano artists not being able to afford houses and how a certain amapiano page is moving against him. pic.twitter.com/p6r119QcIh
The “Kilimanjaro” hitmaker also shared that he wants to stop making Amapiano music and venture into other genres such as R&B, and the next EP he will be releasing will be the last one.
“After my EP, I just wanna say after my EP drop, I don't think I wanna do Amapiano again. I don't think I'm gonna start afresh. I'm gonna delete everything. I really wanna leave Amapiano and start doing new things like ama genre abo Usher again and see how it goes from there,” PCee said.
PCee is not the first Amapiano artist to speak out in public about the exploitation that is happening in the industry.
In May 2024, Oph Sage posted a video on TikTok, captioned, “POV: your song has over 18 million streams, but you got 0 gigs.”
The song in question is “Wadibusa”, which he was featured in with Uncle Waffles.
Social media users quickly took the hint and pointed fingers at Uncle Waffles.
To add fuel to the fire, MacG criticised Uncle Waffles on "Podcast and Chill", calling her a “leech.” He remarked that while Uncle Waffles has a top-charting song, Oph Sage is struggling to secure gigs and is performing in smaller venues, such as taverns.
However, Oph Sage later released a statement that he was not referring to Uncle Waffles and all the online claims that she is a “leech” were untrue.