While we all love Riz Ahmed’s track Mogambo, some new information regarding its music video has come to light. We know that Riz cast Pakistani wrestler Rashid Pehlwan in the Mogambo music video and used his image for the album cover. However, it turns out that this was all done without fair compensation to the wrestler.
Someone on Twitter has come forth alleging that Rashid Pehlwan was not fairly compensated for his services. They also stated that Rashid was made to sign a questionable contract with Riz Ahmed.
https://twitter.com/awaisusan/status/1201485384217251841
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Based on the contract, the wrestler Muhammad Rashid Rasheed was actually approached for the documentary ‘The Picture‘. Since the agreement allows the use of Rashid Pehlwan’s audio and visual for anything Bissam Tariq and Riz Ahmed want to, they used it in the Mogambo music video.
Unsurprisingly, Rashid was unaware of how creative ownership, and distribution rights work. A researcher Awais Khalid explained all this to him.
Before I could answer, Rashid started to tell me about the 'goray' who had done a photoshoot with him at the time of the Dangal but forgot to ask him for his consent to use these images as part of their project.
— Awais Khalid 🤖 (@awaisujaan) December 2, 2019
That’s how the whole Riz Ahmed story came up. When Rashid was initially approached, he didn’t know his shots would be used for the Mogambo music video. When he later found out that the footage would be used for a bigger project, he asked for more money.
The Lahori wrestler explained to the researcher how he had been ‘convinced to settle’, and was assured he’d be compensated later.
Rashid says that they were taken aback by Rashid's demand of 100,000 rupees (roughly 1000 USD back then) and started to bargain with him. They asked Rashid to accept 15,000 rupees (150 USD) and promised him that they were going to come back and give him another 40-45,000 later.
— Awais Khalid 🤖 (@awaisujaan) December 2, 2019
Riz Ahmed’s team just gave Rashid the cold shoulder after that. He had not even seen the famed Mogambo music video.
I figured that this Rashid was the Rashid from @rizmc 's 'Mogambo'. A bit taken aback and not knowing how to respond, I asked him how he had liked the video. To my surprise, Rashid had not even seen the video that over 200,000 people on YouTube had already seen.
— Awais Khalid 🤖 (@awaisujaan) December 2, 2019
The Venom antagonist even promoted the album on Jimmy Kimmel Live. Awais pointed out how unfortunate this whole thing is.
https://twitter.com/awaisusan/status/1201485452068429824
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The thing is while there’s nothing illegal being done here, it’s unfortunate that a track as famous as Mogambo failed to fairly compensate the central character.
Laws are in place to protect everyone’s rights. Even if Rashid Pehlwan wasn’t fully aware, Bissam Tariq and Riz Ahmed were.
You can watch the music video for Mogambo here:
