Diamond Platnumz won’t refund organizers the US $150,000 (Sh19.3 million) he was paid to perform at the botched Furaha festival in Nairobi last Saturday.
The Bongo Flava sensation headlined the concert held at the Nairobi Polo Club and was the only act on the night to fail to perform despite being paid in full.
In a video, he shared while in Paris explaining what transpired, Diamond squarely blames the event organizers for their complacency, which led to his failure to perform.
According to the singer, he kept every part of the bargain as per the contract between his management and the organizers of Furaha Fest, but instead, they let him down.
“I am an artist who has tremendous respect for my job. There have been a lot of fabricated stories as to why I didn’t perform for my fans at the Nairobi Polo Club. To set the record straight, I arrived a day early (Friday) before the event as the headliner as stipulated in the contract. On the day of the concert, I arrived at the venue on time just as Khaligraph Jones was doing his set and was waiting for my turn to go on stage,” Diamond explains in the more than 10-minute video clip.
He says that when he arrived, he found that there was already a commotion going on.
Kenyan singer Willy Paul was at the center of the drama as he accused the organizers of trying to stop him from performing and instead insisted that Diamond go on stage first.
“I decided to stay in the car as I watched the commotion unfold. My manager then called the promoter and asked him to get his house in order because the situation was putting me in danger. The promoter asked for 10 minutes to deal with the situation, but it dragged on,” Diamond continued.
The singer says he waited three hours for his time before he could go on stage, and by the time the organizers got their house in order, it was too late.
“Ideally, when an artist gets to the venue, the wait before they get on stage to perform should be no more than an hour, I was there for three hours. By the time things seemed to settle down, it was after 3 am. Judging from the situation, if I was going to go on stage, it would be at dawn. People would have been exhausted after waiting all those hours for me to go on stage,” he laments.
So it made no sense for Diamond to end the show in the early hours of the next morning.
“Even as a headliner, where you get to be the last act, there is a reasonable schedule for the act to go on stage, but not at dawn. I blame the organizers for making me disappoint my Kenyan fans”.
Diamond, who strongly blamed Willy Paul for the drama, says these are the circumstances that led his management to cancel his performance.
“Why would I not want to perform, I had been paid in full. I cannot be paid US $150,000 and then come to fight to perform on stage. I will be at the venue on time and wait for the organizer to call me on stage. I will keep an eye on my watch, and if my performance time is over, I will leave the venue, and I will have pocketed your money and will not refund.” he said.
The singer insisted that he was ready for the show and had kept his end of bargain.
I made sure that I fulfilled every bit of the agreement, but the organizers slept on the job and so I pocketed the money. There is no fault on my part, the promoters only have themselves to blame,” Diamond maintained.
After the failed performance, the organizers of Furaha Fest issued a lengthy statement accusing Diamond and his team of making unreasonable demands.
“Despite our best efforts, his team’s behavior and demands proved to be regrettable and unnecessarily overbearing,” read part of the statement.
