Artists, Babitseng clash over performance fees
Dumisani Ncube | Tuesday December 13, 2016 18:00
It emerged that Babitseng, who was the promoter of the event that was headlined by Mi Casa, has not paid a number of local artists that were booked for the night at Stanbic Bank Piazza Molapo Crossing.
Artists that performed during the event and are spearheading the issue of payments include Lizibo, DJ Kuchi and DJ Izzy.
“I have been calling Tariq ever since the time of the show asking him to pay me, but he has been avoiding me. He does not even take my calls. After launching a campaign exposing him on social networks, he ended up paying me half of the amount because the pressure was piling up on him. He even begged me to take down the post from my social media accounts,” DJ Izzy said.
After failing to get hold of Babitseng, DJ Izzy approached Huawei, the event sponsor, where he spoke to Natasha Keamogetse, a representative of the company.
“Upon hearing that I was at Huawei, Tariq called me and promised to pay me half of the money, but he didn’t up until I did the online campaign and he paid that half,” he said. DJ Izzy is now taking legal action against Babitseng. Another artist who came out accusing Babitseng for not paying him is DJ Kuchi who is furious, stating that Tariq used their friends such as Dolla Mac who invited DJ Izzy and himself to play at the event knowing that he will not pay them.
“I haven’t taken any action against him because I am just being humble about the issue. He was given sponsorship by Huawei. Why is he not paying us?” DJ Kuchi asked.
Lizibo had also previously stated that he was not given his performance fee. He however noted that this is an issue that he does not want to dwell much on as it hurts him looking at the fact that he also has to pay his band.
Babitseng has not been taking calls from Showbiz since Friday last week. Telephoned two weeks ago, he said that he was only in charge of settling bills for the international acts, being Mi Casa and his partners, but he did not mention who was supposed to pay local artists.
“The international artists took the large chunk of money, that’s why Mi Casa was quick to stop talking about the issue,” he said at the time. Babitseng went on to point fingers at DJ Izzy for publishing the statement on social media without his agreement.
“I do not have time to deal with small boys. Him and me have an agreement now. I do not understand why he is doing all this and talking about me on Facebook. We agreed he would get his payment at a certain period. I do not understand why he is doing all this. Booking him at the event was to give him a platform now he is doing this,” he highlighted.
The headlining acts, Mi Casa that ended up not even performing at the event, were not happy with the reception from the time they arrived in the country till they left, as they ended up booking flights using their own funds.