Rafael Ricardo is not only recognized in the world of entertainment for his accordion interpretation of songs such as Lady, The little owlor for his participation in productions such as Hey Pretty and Rafael Orozco, the idol; He also waged a fight for composers’ rights, which did not leave him on very good terms with some businessmen and colleagues.
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The accordion player fought against SAYCO, the Society of Authors and Composers for the rights of artists and their works. In his personal case, He wanted the recognition he deserved for his arrangements and compositions.but this led him to a personal and disrespectful fight against Rafael Manjarrez, president of the society.
Currently, Rafael Manjarrez points out about the case of Rafael Ricardo that “we recognize it, it is evident, but we said at some point that the mistake was that we did not recognize him as an author at the level that he felt. But it is now a thing of the past, as we lawyers say, it became res judicata.”
At the time, in 2019, Rafael Ricardo became involved in the fight for recognition, which he considered was being denied by Sayco.. However, in the eyes of those around him, he made the mistake of taking the fight to social networks, where he published videos very indignant about the situation, and reaching personal instances with Manjarrez.
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Saúl Campanella, director of Las Voces de los Billo’s and friend of the accordion player, remembers that “I told him to have a little more restraint in the way he handled this topic on the networks.” For his part, Hernando Sierra, musician and friend, states that at that moment Ricardo “was already over the top with a very vulgar vocabulary on the networks, I never approved of that.”
Although many of his colleagues agreed with Rafael Ricardo’s demands for the recognition of his rights, they agree that he did it the wrong way by attacking the president of Sayco and not the company. “Rafa’s sin was to personalize the problem. If he doesn’t personalize the problem, I told him: ‘Rafael Manjarrez is the president of Sayco, fight with Sayco, not with him.'”
Manjarrez adds that “I always remember that episode with a bittersweet feeling because, as I have said other times, for reasons of artistic affinity I managed to have some threshold of affection, not of recognition. Out of respect for his absence, I am no longer going to evaluate the behavior, I think it is not appropriate.”
