Sassy Sasa Klaas promoters clash
Spira Tlhankane | Tuesday March 8, 2016 18:00
The organisers of the show recently announced they had replaced the female rapper with another rapper, ATI due to popular demand.
The Mmamongwato song maker took her frustrations to Facebook saying initially her intention was to let the issue slide, but the dishonesty from the part of the organisers tempered with her brand.
“Don’t damage my brand by acting like people didn’t want to see me when really it’s because I found out you were exploiting local artists. You originally told me there will be two shows consecutively, one in Gaborone and another in Maun, and for that I should quote with a discount, and it made business sense for me so I accepted,” read the Facebook post.
Sasa Klaas said she later found out the shows had been merged into one, therefore it was a breach of their initial agreement and it meant charges needed to be renegotiated.
Cheeky Sasa Klaas blatantly expressed her disgust on the issue because international artists got large chunk of proceeds. She even took a swipe at South African singer, Kelly Khumalo, who is among the artists headlining the show. “Kelly Khumalo is probably getting paid like Beyonce and this is hilarious to me because she doesn’t even get booked in her own country...lol,” she said in the same post.
She said she felt Botswana artists must be empowered because Botswana is celebrating 50 years. “You have a South African headlining it and now I must also accept poor payment?” she said. Sasa Klaas called for local artists to stand together and boycott the show.
However, in an interview with Showbiz, the show organiser, David Abram, said it was very unfortunate that they worked with an unprofessional artist in the name of Sasa Klaas. Abram said initially there were supposed to be two shows in Gaborone and Maun.
“Due to the unavailability of the Maun Stadium, we decided to do one show in Gaborone. We called all the local artists and asked to renegotiate and they agreed. Sasa Klaas didn’t come to the meeting, but we managed to sign a contract with her at a later date,” he recalled.
Abram said they engaged South African artists AKA and Kelly Khumalo to headline the show because the show was not receiving enough publicity. “We pushed the show and when it was getting bigger, Sasa Klaas called us demanding to renegotiate her contract. She came with her own contract demanding to be paid twice the initial amount,” he said.
Abram added that they sat down with her trying to show her how things work in the negotiation business. “She told us to take it or leave it even when we tried to show her that we had already advertised with her name on the lineup, but she refused,” he said.
Abram said people were already calling for ATI to be included in the line-up, so they took a decision to replace her with ATI. He said Klaas should not compare herself with international artists because they have bigger brands. “Nicki Minaj will be in SA and she will be paid millions and SA artists know they can’t compete with that,” he said.
Abram also responded to Klaas’s post on Facebook. “Negotiations are part of any business. When you have finalised the agreement and you change the price back to where we negotiated and start blaming South African artists then there is something wrong. It’s got nothing to do with Kelly Khumalo,” he said in the Facebook post.
He indicated the promoters do not have a problem with Klaas, but if she could not deal with the contract she signed, then they had to replace her.
Klaas confirmed the Facebook post to Showbiz and denied the allegations that she demanded more money because SA artists were involved.
“The promoters were sneaky. The way they went about it made it seem like it was my fault. They wanted people to believe that there was some sort of voting process hence my replacement,” she said. She said her main concern was the organisers telling everyone that she was replaced out of popular demand.
The sassy Sasa Klaas said she decided to pull out on her own because she couldn’t agree to terms with the new contract. “Initially there was supposed to be two shows but when I found out it was now one show, I didn’t want to be part of the show,” she said. Sasa Klaas indicated there was nothing unprofessional about her conduct.