The Milimani Commercial Magistrate's Court has awarded gospel singer Douglas Jiveti Sh3 million in general damages after ruling that his 1992 hit 'Mambo ya Ajabu' (Bwana Mungu Wangu Ninakupenda) had been sampled and re-released without his consent.
Mambo Ya Ajabu (Remix) – Douglas Jiveti
Jiveti wrote the song in 1990, recorded it soon afterwards, and released it to the public in June 1992. The song quickly gained traction, enjoying massive airplay on the radio and at church and crusade events, and it soon became one of the most recognisable gospel tunes in Kenya at that time.
Fast forward to 2016: podcaster and aspiring gospel musician Florence Wangara, also known as Nashami, re-recorded the song with minimal changes without seeking Jiveti’s permission.
This prompted the veteran singer to file a copyright infringement lawsuit in May 2024, insisting that he had neither licensed nor consented to the reproduction, remake or distribution of his original work.
In court, Jiveti told the magistrate that Wangara released the reworked version with the clear intention of making money from it.
He argued that her efforts to distribute the song across major digital music platforms, including YouTube and Mdundo, indicated commercial exploitation and that she had earned a substantial amount over the seven years that the song had been in circulation prior to the case being filed.
“The defendant exploited the work without attribution and distorted the original composition, thereby infringing his moral rights,” Jiveti’s lawyer, David Katee, told the court.
However, in her defence, Nashami maintained that her version was entirely distinct in form and sound, and argued that it bore no resemblance to Jiveti’s original composition.
“There is obvious repetition of the words ‘amefanya mambo ya ajabu’ with only minimal variation. The rhythms of the two compositions bear striking similarity,” the court noted in the judgment.
According to the magistrate, an ordinary listener would immediately recognise the similarity between the two songs without the need for expert musical analysis.
The court observed that the only noticeable difference lay in the quality and clarity of production, a factor attributed to advances in recording technology over the years.
Based on this, the magistrate concluded that Nashami had unlawfully reproduced a substantial part of Jiveti’s copyrighted work, thereby infringing his economic and moral rights.
The court also criticised her for releasing the song under her own stage name without crediting Jiveti as the composer and for altering the work without his consent.
When asked about her profits from the record, Nashami told the court that she had not gained financially from the song, arguing that her music career had failed a long time ago.
Jiveti had asked the court to award him Sh6 million, citing the approximately eight-year infringement period and referencing a previous copyright case in which former rapper Simon “Bamboo” Kimani was awarded Sh4.5 million against telecom giant Safaricom.
While acknowledging this precedent, the magistrate noted that the current case involved an individual artist, not a corporate entity, and that the scale of exploitation was comparatively lower.
“Balancing the duration of infringement, the nature of unauthorised use, and the infringement of both economic and moral rights, and the need to award compensatory rather than punitive damages, I find that an award of Sh3,000,000 as general damages is commensurate with the magnitude of damage suffered by the Plaintiff.’’
