Why Nigerian artists don't turn up for shows after payment

The DMW singer was alleged to have received N600 000 ($1700) to perform at the reunion of students of Afe Babalola University, Ado-Ekiti, which was held on 5 January 2019, at the Adetokunbo Adewale Hall of the Nigerian Law School in Victoria Island, Lagos.

The celebratory event happens to be the first official reunion to be held by the institution’s alumnae and it could have been a perfect score, except for one botched important fact: Peruzzi didn’t show up.

Just last year, Kizz Daniel had his name dragged across the internet by Babcock University students. The ‘Madu’ singer was said to have been wired 3m naira as performance fee, and although he was present at the school on the day of the event, he refused to go through with the performance. Reports say it was because the event organisers didn't meet his standard of transportation arrangement.

In the closing months of 2017, YBNL head, Olamide, and his ally Phyno were involved in a similar scandal at the Culture Tour in Canada, where both artists were absent despite being the headliners of the show.

Artist booking and performance scandals are becoming a regular occurrence in Nigeria with the same details: an event organiser falls out with an artist, the story hits the internet, accusations and counter-accusations are made, the accuser threatens the accused with a court case, public opinion is split, the conversation runs for a period, the story quietly dies. Then a similar incident surfaces at a later time – with new characters usually.

It is the case that in these incidents, organisers do the calling-out and the artists involved react from a defensive position: Peruzzi blamed his absence at the ABUAD reunion on the failure of the organisers to attend to logistics; Olamide and Phyno, in a joint press release, pegged their dissociation from the Culture Tour on a breach of terms by the organiser.

From an observer’s standpoint, it is difficult to make an accurate call in these stories due to the intricacies and exclusive nature of the negotiation process. But some details of these negotiations are common knowledge.

The standard artist booking arrangement involves professional performance fees and logistics. The latter covers transportation, lodging and feeding arrangement for the artist – and his or her team, in some cases. The mode of payment could be an all-inclusive package or separate arrangements could be made for performance fees and logistics. This depends on the nature of the negotiation between the organizer and the artist, who is usually represented by a manager, with the involvement of a performance rider.

The rider bears the responsibility of communicating the artist’s demands to the event organizer. “A rider guides a promoter on how to treat the artist,” says Moses Johnson of the Lagos-based talent management firm The Zone Agency.

It is common for artists to accept to be paid a performance fee separately, trusting the organizer, or show promoter as the case may be, to handle the logistics. Some, however, prefer to handle it all.

”There are a lot of promoters out there that engage in fraudulent activities,” Johnson adds. “Some of them fake flight tickets – you can land at the airport and they use a substandard cab without a license to pick you up – or they leave hotel bills unpaid.”

This understanding and relative factors like artist stature, demand, the nature of the event, and location influence booking negotiations. This explains why Runtown can get a 6m naira ($16 000) deal in which his logistics will be covered by the promoter or a 10m naira ($27 000) all-inclusive deal.

It could be a charge of the equivalent of 15m naira ($42 000) for a foreign event or  3m naira ($8 500) if it is organized for an audience of students in Unilag or Uniport. Tumi Lawrence, a veteran radio presenter and former manager of Kizz Daniel, says artists make ”special considerations for schools especially when the show is not sponsored and the revenue from the gate fee is usually not enough to bring artists.”

In such a case, he says, the artist might ”accept a lower offer if an agreement can be reached with the organizer to have the event at a later time which the artist feels will be less busy for him or her.”

The reason could be: exploring the prospect of building on the feedback coming from the region or the decision could be inspired by the idea of “giving back”. Due to the nature of these negotiations, the terms in the conclusions are usually delicate, such that a slight breach – one unmet agreement – could cause a breakdown.

The nature of the agreement binding the parties determines, to a large extent, the approach of redress in the case of a breach.  An agreement bound by a contract would normally get a legal redress but it is not bizarre to learn of booking arrangements based on verbal agreements. This is, of course, unprofessional.

The contract-bound agreements are of two kinds. Johnson says, ”there are contracts that permit you to refund and there are some that are nonrefundable.” For the former, the artist is obliged to make a refund to the organizer if the breach comes from his or her end but a nonrefundable agreement has no such condition.  What often happens when there is no contract is a battle on the internet.   

Clearly, every detail of the negotiation between an artist and an event organizer is crucial. A slight miscommunication or breach, regardless of the magnitude, could bring the whole process crashing down. Some cases lead to court and an offender could end up in handcuffs or behind bars. It is therefore important to maintain a professional attitude from start to conclusion of every booking negotiation, whether as an artist, a manager, a rider, an event organizer or as a middle man looking to get a cut.