Brazilian Superstar Alok Exposed for Utilizing Unpaid Ghost Producers to Skyrocket to Fame

Sevenn alleges they silently produced track after track for flagship superstar Alok without compensation, inciting a war of litigation.

As a spicy kickstart to 2022, Billboard recently released an opinion editorial and investigative journalism piece covering Brazilian DJ duo Sevenn, or brothers Sean and Kevin Brauer, and their ongoing lawsuits against superstar DJ Alok. Although the OP-ED piece is nothing short of a lengthy and dense novel, the synopsis is simple: Sevenn’s legal team insisted that their clients developed familial, fond relationships with Alok, who in return abused his power as an industry mogul to manipulate the brothers into producing free content. Sevenn insisted they ghostwrote more than a dozen tracks for which they received little to no compensation, and certainly no royalties. The article broke down the math for readers, alleging a jaw dropping heist of roughly 1.3 million USD.

“Honestly, it’s shocking that once again my work is being used unfairly,” narrated Keven Brauer. “It feels like another betrayal. This is a case in point of what we’ve been saying. To the young and upcoming artists out there, we hope this serves as a warning to know your rights and treat it like a business.”

Although the article painted a clear story of exploitation and injustice – portraying the boys as victims of theft and industry abuse, as well as survivors of a contrarian religious cult linked to Fleetwood Mac – there were some brow-raising oddities. Sevenn might have ghost-written a litany of tracks for Alok, but the duo wasn’t exactly confined to a sad little corner throughout their career.

In fact, Sevenn was credited for some of EMD’s most celebrated tracks of all time, hits that you, your sibling, your mother, your neighbor, and literally anyone that has ever stepped foot inside a club would recognize. Those tracks were EDM rave classics, ragers such as BOOM, a collaboration with Tiesto, and BYOB, a track featuring none-other-than Alok himself. Sevenn played Tomorrowland, had a six-figure following on Instagram, millions of monthly Spotify streams, and a hefty YouTube account. Clearly, all careers snapped regardless of any inequities.

To make matters messier, Alok recently fired back with his own lawsuit, claiming that he was never paid for performances and public appearances in relation to Sevenn, asserting that the brothers exploited Alok for his fame with no imbursement for the publicity – and in one fell swoop, the whole thing became a tempestuous conundrum, a nettled and tyrannical toddler.

Despite the frenzied back and forth, the big question, or elephant in the room, dwarfs the querulous squabble. In the music industry, how do we better define the fine line that separates collaboration and exploitation? How do we learn to better differentiate between symbiotic relationships and parasitic ones? How do we hold individuals and entities accountable for overstepping boundaries, while also recognizing that collaboration feeds all mouths? In this pursuit, patrons and professionals fight the good fight.

Here at Exron, we wish Alok, Sean, and Kevin nothing but peace and solace. We hope for a conclusion that mollifies and reunites, a solution that broadens perceptions, humbles, and inspires – and that justice prevails.