Ghana: Gyakie joins British CMO PRS for Music

The news follows an April partnership with American music rights and metadata management software platform Orfium to expand PRS’s licensing coverage to music users based in Africa.

Founded in 1914, PRS represents the rights of more than 165 000 songwriters, composers and music publishers globally. It comprises two collection societies namely the Mechanical Copyright Protection Society and the Performing Right Society, and earlier this month, disclosed record-breaking collections of £964m in 2022, up 18.9% compared to 2019, and a royalty payout increase by 21.9% in 2019 to £836.2m.

The music rights management organisation confirmed the news across social media, describing the artist as an unstoppable force in music, adding: “We can’t wait to see the future of Gyakie’s musical journey unfold.”

Born Jackline Acheampong, Gyakie, whose music listens as R&B and Afro-fusion, began her music career in 2019 while in college, shooting to mainstream notice with her debut single ‘Love Is Pretty’. She is behind other hit singles like ‘Never Like This’ and ‘Whine’. Her debut EP Seed (2020) was led with the widely popular single ‘Forever’. 

Over the years, she has received multiple laurels. She has also been named in prestigious artist development programmes including Spotify’s EQUAL and Apple Music’s Africa Rising initiative. Her growing catalogue has amassed more than 150 million streams across all platforms.

Her latest single ‘Scar’ features UK rapper JBEE.

Meanwhile, PRS for Music has announced the reappointment of Grammy-nominated songwriter V V Brown, award-winning singer-songwriter Laura Mvula, and dance music producer John Truelove to the PRS Members’ Council.