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.
.jpg)
.png)
.jpg)
.jpg)
