The brewing controversy surrounding the Europe tour of pop artiste,
Orisefemi. is growing into uncontrollable proportions with the main
actors throwing the punches of accusations at each other.
The
singer has been accused of absconding without fulfilling contractual
obligations of a leg of the tour in Europe for which he has been
allegedly paid.
According to reports, Orisefemi and show
promoter, Alex Ozone departed Nigeria on November 8, 2014 and they
landed in Padova, Italy on November 9 ahead of the month-long European
tour of 10 cities at the rate of €1,500 per show.
Before the
tour, Czech Republic-based Urban Entertainment, through Alex Ozone,
signed the tour contract papers with Orisefemi’s ‘Arogunmente Sound
Entertainment, spelling out the details.
The story making rounds
at the moment now is that despite signing a contract for the shows,
Orisefemi ran away from his hotel room in Czech republic and returned to
Nigeria to demand for more money.
According to the tour
organiser, Alex Ozone, the ‘Double Wahala’ star had been paid €6,500
which should cover his fees for 5 shows but has only performed at two
shows before disappearing and turning around to ask for more money.
NET
spoke to both parties, and below is a narration of their versions of
the story.
Otherwise called Danku within the Nigerian music
industry, Yusuf Adebola is Oritsefemi’s manager and he spoke to NET
exclusively on the saga trailing his artiste’s European tour.
According
to him, ‘Matthew Ohio was supposed to package the tour, I’m sure
wherever he is now, he’ll either be laughing at us or feeling pity for
us. I didn’t give Alex Ozone the approval but because he’s a friend of
the house he took it up and started promoting him and convinced us that
he could handle it.
He just got to know Femi this year, through
me. This same guy now came to my house to let us know we need to start
the tour travel processing, so he collected our passports with the aim
of going to the embassy to get visas and other documents, instead he
kept my own passport in his house and only submitted Oritsefemi’s own
along with his own claiming that he manages Oritsefemi at the embassy.
He
went to represent himself as the manager and kept my own passport at
home, I just went to ransack his house yesterday and picked it up under a
cupboard in his house where he kept it.
Contrary to Ozone’s
claim, we were not paid any upfront payment, he’s probably the one that
collected the money from the show promoters and got himself stuck and
when their documents came out, I told them that we won’t travel if my
documents don’t arrive but he convinced us that my visa would be
approved during the week and I’ll join them there, so the plan for was
Oritsefemi to go with him and when I join them we’ll kick off the tour,
but since that didn’t happen because he didn’t even process my visa, and
my artiste wasn’t comfortable with the arrangement.
After about a
week, he called me that he wasn’t comfortable with the setting and
immediately I got him a return ticket and flew him back home, because
when they got to Europe, they stole Oritsefemi’s passport to keep him
stranded with them.
Ozone can’t claim he paid my artist, because
he didn’t sign a contact with my artiste, he signed it with me on behalf
of my label, so why would he pay my artiste if he’s really sensible. I
told him I am not concerned about that.
According to Ozone’s
version of the story, Oritsefemi had earlier travelled with him to
Europe only to return to Nigeria to demand for more money before coming
back and absconding yet again.
Oritsefemi’s manager said: ‘It’s a
lie, nothing of such happened, if I even want to take him on as regards
the contract we signed, the contract stated that he was supposed to
arrange visas and travel documents for 4 members of the team, but I only
gave him mine and that of Oritsefemi and yet he didn’t deliver on it,
he kept my own in his house, Ozone is a fraudstaer, I have known him for
several years and he should be jailed.’
Alex Ozone, in his
initial reaction to the controversy on his Facebook wall wrote:
‘That’s how Orisefemi
abscond from his hotel back to naija without notice and start demanding
for extra money outside the signed Tour contract fee… Yet he was paid
upfront money and everything was provided for him….. WHICH WAY MY
PEOOLE?.’
In an exclusive interview with NET, Alex Ozone
narrated his own version of the story saying: ‘This story came up
because some people are just fools, I was the one that did Davido’s
first European tour which was very successful, I was the one that
brought Terry G, Chuddy K and others to Europe for their last European
tours too and it all went smoothly. This is what I do, it is very
expensive to bring an artiste from Nigeria to Europe, I don’t gain
anything from it, I’m just doing it to promote Nigerian culture and
music. They all know the situation, there’s no money its just to promote
their brands.
‘Early this year when I was promoting Chuddy K’s tour,
Danku and Oritsefemi came to my office and they said they want me to
package their European tour, but I told them I couldn’t do it because at
that time I was busy with Chuddy K’s tour so I linked them up with one
of my DJs in Europe, but it didn’t work out because the Dj said
Orisefemi’s brand wasn’t big enough in Europe. So when I finished with
Chuddy K I told them I’ll help them out and I pulled some strings and
spoke with my sponsor, Urban Entertainment. We agreed on a contract of
€1,500 per show for 10 cities. The tour was supposed to have been in
August, but Orisefemi postponed it because that was when he went for the
NEA award in New York, then shortly afterwards the Ebola crisis
happened so getting visas was a little difficult.
‘So because of
the timings and urgency of the tour, when I took their visas to the
embassy, they said it was already late, so I persuaded them and the lady
said the best they could do was to do an express visa for Oritsefemi
which would be ready in 4 days and she’ll prepare a first document for
Danku so he could use it to re-apply later, but because I know his
manager Danku very well, I was worried and I told Oritsefemi about it
and he told me not to worry about it, that he’ll handle Danku’s case.’
When
quizzed further on the allegations that he never took Danku’s passport
to the embassy, Ozone said: ‘When the woman said both couldn’t work out,
I told my boy to go and pick it up from her and give to Danku so he can
use it to re-apply later by himself. All these while I was speaking to
Oritsefemi about it but he assured me not to bother that I should give
him upfront payment for the job and I paid Orisefemi N300,000 which is
an equivalent of €1,500 and I later learnt that Oritsefemi even lied to
Danku that I gave him N150,000. So we got to Italy and he played his
first show in Padova and the following day we were supposed to connect a
flight to Czech Republic where they had already booked his hotel for
one month and paid, but we missed our flight, then the following day,
Oritsefemi woke up and said he was going to Rome to see his friend, I
advised him against it but he insisted only for us to discover that he
came back to Nigeria after spending just 4 days.’
According
to Ozone, he was puzzled but remained calm until he spoke to
Oritsefemi.
‘When I discovered he came back to Nigeria, I called him
up and asked why, he said his new management is not aware that he’s on
tour. At that point I was pissed, because it’s his job to explain to his
new management that before they signed him, he had already signed a
tour contract and the next thing, he requested for €5,000 before he
could come back. We paid him the money through Western Union and he came
back and even did a video drop for two shows confirming he’ll be
performing at those cities. He performed at one show on Wednesday, then
on Thursday morning we went to wake him up from his hotel room but he
was nowhere to be found, the receptionist said he checked out around 5am
only for us to see that he’s back in Nigeria again. I was very pissed,
so I called him again and he said he wants to be paid another money
before he returns. The problem now is even if we agree to give him the
money, what is the guarantee that he won’t run back and demand for more
money, and his manager, Danku is aware of all these, he’s even the one
demanding for more money. So far he has just performed at two shows,
he’s been paid €6,500 and he has a contract of €1,500 per show for 10
shows which means he’s owing us now.
NET quizzed Ozone how
he was supposed to be paid for his effort on the tour, and he said: ‘The
show actually sells for €2,500, we pay the artiste €1,500 as agreed and
we spend the rest on logistics, flight, feeding, accommodation and
all.’
Between Danku and Alex Ozone
For those in the know,
Oritsefemi’s manager, Danku and popular show promoter, Alex Ozone used
to be very good friends and their friendship dates back to 2010 as
rookie artistes’ managers. While Alex Ozone ran a media and
entertainment company called 03 Media, Danku also runs the defunct E-74
Entertainment.
They have both worked with several pop stars in
the industry in different capacities as mangers, A&R, publicists and
all. The last project they worked on was the Terry G project in which
Danku served as Terry G’s manager while Ozone was the A&R manager
before they both parted ways with Terry G in January 2014.
Since
then, Danku moved on to become Oritsefemi’s full time manager while
Ozone embarked on the Chuddy K 2014 European tour project.
Abolore '9ice' Akande has submitted his nomination form for House of
Representatives, Ogbomosho North, South and Orire Federal constituency
1, yesterday in Ibadan. According to his Media Manager, Tijani Adegbola,
the submission of the form was done at the All Progressives Congress
Secretariat, in Yemetu, yesterday 24th November 2014.