Famous gospel music artist Rev Tshivhangwaho Patrick Ndou has come out of the fold and spoken out against piracy, which he says is destroying the music industry. The 38-year-old artist from Elim joins the never-ending list of disgruntled musicians who are contemplating quitting the music industry as they can barely make ends meet out of music. The man who became a household name and played with big names in the music industry such as Zozo, Roxley Masevhe, Dan Tshanda, and Berea Madzoga has nothing to show for his hard labour. Ndou said he was very angry when he found a lot of his music and others pirated and being sold at music outlets at Malamulele and Giyani. He said he decided to come out and speak out against piracy as he would not like to see himself dying a poor man while others are making a killing out of his music without having sweated for it. He said many artists had passed on, with the government and community having to donate for their funerals even though their music had made many millions for others. “I don´t want to see myself and my fellow artists having to follow the example of Mahlathini, who made people millionaires and died a pauper. I do not want to be one of the statistics and this is the reason I am standing out and speaking about the ills in our industry. Many others are in the same predicament as I am but decide to keep quiet,” he said. Ndou, whose career spans more than 20 years, said record retailers had turned out to be the main culprits in the piracy business. “As artists we used to blame the general public who use their computers to burn discs, but now the big-time pirates have emerged who have all the machinery to make hundreds of CDs in the comfort of their homes. Record bar owners are the ones killing our careers and business as music is the only source of our income,” he said. "The prices they demand from us could not even cover our costs for production and if we refuse, they end up not buying our records,” he added. He said at another tactic would be for owners to buy a few copies and put them on the shelves, while they sell pirated copies. He said he would hear his music being played at villages and townships but when he enquired about the sales, he would be told it was not selling “We have reached a dead end in this industry; we do not know what to do. We had thought we would be fighting piracy with the record bar owners but they are the main culprits. Our business, our livelihood has come to a complete halt, and we do not have a way out of this predicament,” he said. Ndou appealed to the public to help the police fight piracy as they are the ones that are being fed pirated products. Bishop Roxley Masevhe, chairperson of the Limpopo Music Association, confirmed that piracy has been escalating and it is affecting artists, to the extent that some of them have even stopped producing new music as it is expensive and they get nothing in return.