By UK Correspondent
One would think that a mega show featuring Zimbabwe heavyweights such as Jah Prayzah and Winky D along with South Africa’s Makhadzi could not possibly go wrong.
And yet that is exactly what happened with the inaugural Africa Music Festival in Leicester at the weekend with Makhadzi and Jah Prayzah complaining before the thousands of fans about the time they were given on stage; the former even alleging sabotage.
Makhadzi would later go and let rip live on Facebook claiming the organisers had conspired to sabotage her and Jah Prayzah in order to promote Winky D.
Organiser Y2K entertainment had still not responded to media requests for comment on the allegations by Makhadzi by the time of publishing.
The omens had not quite looked good well before Saturday; a press conference planned for Thursday and scheduled for 3pm in the afternoon was eventually abandoned around10pm after the artists failed to turn up.
A welcome party scheduled for Friday also failed to take place.
Even so, thousands of fans turned up Saturday for what was billed as a ‘family show’ and scheduled to start at 12pm.
But the midday start turned into 7pm hours which is about the time traditional opening act Selmor Mtukudzi made it to the stage.
After that, switching from one artist to the next on the line-up would take anything up to 30 minutes or more and soon it became clear that there wouldn’t be enough time for the big hitters Winky D, Makhadzi and Jah Prayzah before the venue had to close.
Dancehall star Winky D wowed the appreciative crowd for more than an hour, but with time running out the organisers drastically cut Makhadzi’s time on stage.
And she was not pleased, complaining on stage that she was probably being treated differently because she was not from Zimbabwe.
Jah Prayzah took to the stage after her; and he only had 30 minutes.
He too was not best pleased, telling the crowd; “… pains me all the time because when we come here, we would have planned a show befitting the sacrifices you have made to come here from faraway places.
“I know you have travelled far, some of you flew in and booked accommodation in order to attend this show … and so I should not be performing or just 30 minutes … and this happens year in, year out.”
Makhadzi later took to Facebook live for a more extensive rant, accusing the promoters of deliberately sabotaging her and Jah Prayzah.
“Winky D, I love you my brother but it’s like the whole thing was planned for your performance to destroy us … I don’t if you know that but that’s what the situation was,” she said.
She continued; “They were supposed to manage the time and the artists.
“So, all I can say is that whatever happened there was planned for me and Jah Prayzah to fight because Winky D ended his performance when there was just 40 minutes left for the venue to close whereas Jah Prayzah was supposed to perform more than an hour and I was supposed to perform for 45 minutes.”
However, there was a fan backlash over Makhadzi’s claim that peopled had paid to see her and Jah Prayzah.
She claimed; “It’s not a secret that people bought tickets because of me and Jah Prayzah; that’s not a secret.
“They phoned me to go to the BBC to an interview and I was happy with that; I had to promote the show.
“There were ten thousand people waiting for me and Jah Prayzah to perform but they had to kill time for us to perform from 2120 hours when the venue closes at 2200 hours meaning us who sold the tickets must perform 20 minutes each so that fans can go and complain about us.
“It’s like they gave us money to destroy our names.”
But fans did not agree; “She needs to sit down; we actually came to watch Winky D. What makes her think we would come here to listen to music played from a USB?”
PROMOTERS APOLOGISE:
The issue that disappointed most was not having enough time for Winky D, Makhadzi and Jah Prayzah. For those who have attended our previous events they are aware that our time keeping has always been impeccable.
However, for this event time was affected due to a number of reasons. There was a major accident on Friday 25/08/23 on M1 involving the lorry that was carrying our festival stage and this took hours to replace as they had to bring another stage from Leeds which led to the sound check planned for that evening being cancelled. The production team did not have enough time to work within the 9pm curfew set in licensing conditions as part of noise pollution management.
Therefore the sound check was moved to Saturday, 26/08/23 the day of the show and we had 7 live bands to accommodate and that put the whole event on the back foot. On the day of the event we had the issue of sudden massive showers and that triggered a power cut and we just had to accept and allow nature to take its course and again we lost vital time.
We also had a fan who had a drone and again this was a banned item from licensing conditions and a security breach – taking into account the venue is located next to HM Prison and gain we lost vital time when set plays were stopped and at that point it became impossible to manage the last three artists who all wanted to give it their all.
The park itself as a music venue had its on challenges taking into account its location in the city. We welcome all feedback good and bad as this is the only way we can improve the service that we offer to our customers.
We have so far received feedback areas that require improvement such as children facilities, VVIP, VIP, bars, water supply and go cashless but overall the event was safe and finished with no major incident. We keep encouraging our valued customers to buy tickets online in advance to help us plan and avoid challenges that we faced at the park entrance.
We apologise for the issues raised above. However, we are looking forward to a better event next year embracing other African nations from South, East and West to give the feel for Africa Music Festival UK and once again we would like to thank all those who have supported us over the years.
