RAPPER Reason explains why he changed his name to Sizwe Alakine
It's been five years since Sizwe Alakine changed his stage name, and fans have since complained about how confused they are.
The 38-year-old singer, whose real name is Sizwe Moeketsi, took to social media to explain why he decided to change his name.
Sizwe Alakine, formerly known as Reason, said his decision came after discovering that there were several other artists using the same name globally.
"Once upon a time there was a rapper from South Africa called Reason. He later found out that there were other ‘Reasons' in the music world. Two of them were bands and others were individual artists. This didn't matter to him at the time because he was the most famous," he said.
Streaming caused chaos
He said this changed when music migrated from CDs to streaming platforms.
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"This is because music was now being segmented by names and not genres like they did in the stores. Furthermore, another Reason in America shot up in the same genre and was signed to a bigger label. This presented issues in the back end because artists who featured me or the other Reason started linking profiles to the wrong songs by mistake," he said.
He said what created more problems was some of his catalogue being taken down because Motif's licencing agreement ended with Sony without an alternative distributor.
The ReasonHD fix
"For like… three years my music wasn't available. Reason from SA then decided to re-upload the missing catalogue under the name ReasonHD so that anybody looking for the Reason in SA could tell the difference from the one in the States," he said.
He said that worked for everything except three albums (The Reasoning, Audio 3D, and Azania) and all features linked to his old name.
"Those contracts didn't allow me to take the material down or claim it because it's co-owned with others. This is also why I changed my name completely. ‘Reason' was becoming problematic to manage and administer," he said.
He said all profiles will eventually merge once the contracts allow.
