Ghana’s veteran highlife musician Rex Omar says a cassette pirate in Kumasi built a house from sales of his breakthrough hit Habiba, while he had no money to show for the song’s popularity after selling 30,000 copies.
Omar made the remarks on Saturday, November 7, at the Royal Senchi Hotel in Akosombo during the maiden Black Star Fashion Week. He said the encounter inspired his decades-long campaign for copyright protection and fair royalties in Ghana.
From gospel to highlife#
Omar, born Rex Owusu Marfo, began his career with two unsuccessful gospel albums. When his church declined to fund his studio sessions, he turned to secular highlife, and a financier from outside the church paid for the recording that produced Habiba.
“That is how I shifted from gospel to secular, and I recorded Habiba, and it became a hit,” said Omar, who has previously warned that 97 per cent of Ghanaian musicians earn nothing from their craft.
Even after sales of the song passed 20,000 and then 30,000 copies, he had no money to show for its popularity.
A stranger’s account in Kumasi#
While walking through Adum in Kumasi one day, Omar said a stranger ran up, embraced him and lifted him off the ground.
“He said, if it wasn’t for you, I wouldn’t have built my house,” the musician recounted to the audience at Akosombo. “Then I said, how? He said, you see, I bought one of your songs, and I recorded it on cassette, and out of that I built a house.”
“So you see, me, the creator, the hustler who has released this album and I’ve sold 30,000 copies, and I don’t even know where the money is; somebody has built a house out of my sweat,” he added.
Copyright advocacy and GHAMRO#
The experience propelled Omar into copyright advocacy. In March 2017 he was elected chairman of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation (GHAMRO), where he served two terms campaigning for royalty reforms.
Appointed in February 2025 to lead the Black Star Experience, a cultural initiative of the Ghanaian government, Omar shared the story as industry groups continue pressing to digitise GHAMRO’s royalty collection system for local artistes.
