Gqom duo Distruction Boyz has reportedly denied stealing the popular song "Omunye" from fellow musician and friend DJ Lag.
According to a TshisaLive report, the duo has maintained innocence following a report stating that the song, which launched them into international stardom, had been plagiarised from DJ Lag's "Trip to New York" as reported by City Press.
They have also vowed to fight back.
The duo's Zipho "Goldmax" Mthembu told said they bought the beat from DJ Mphyd, a Cape Town producer who told them he'd produced it.
"DJ Lag posted a 30-second teaser of the song on Instagram but this guy doesn't even have Instagram. How can we copy the song from an Instagram video?" he told the publication.
Never gonna stop
The duo said, despite the report, it will continue to perform the song.
"We won't stop performing the song. It is our song. People don't understand gqom. We are not going to fight DJ LAG. We know him, why would we copy his style?" Mthembu said.
But Black Major, DJ Lag's label, is not backing down.
Music rights expert Sakhele Mzalazala previously told HuffPost that if the matter goes to court, which he said was likely, and Distruction Boyz be found guilty as per the report, they would need to stop performing the song and hand over rights to DJ Lag.
"They will have to give up mechanical and performing rights to the song and will also need to change ownership of the song, so royalties don't go to them," he told HuffPost.
But according to Mthembu, this may be a marketing strategy.
"We are so sad... we created the song from scratch. People have been dancing to this song for months. How come it is being questioned now? Maybe he [DJ Lag] has a new album coming and he is touring overseas, so maybe this is a strategy to market him here," he told TshisaLive.
And people think they know why it took DJ Lag so long to question the matter.
The other half of the duo, Thobani "Que" Mgobhozi, told City Press that although they knew DJ Lag had an EP out, they had not listened to it and that they had no reason to steal his beat because "his gqom is very different to ours. We have commercialised gqom; it's different".
And people still don't have the answers they need:
Additional Reporting by Duenna Mambana.