B Red on rocky campus tour: I did not scam UI, FUTA, OOU students

HKN Music says the hitches that marred B Red’s shows at the University of Ibadan, Federal University of Technology Akure and Olabisi Onabanjo University were caused by student organisers.

Reacting to allegations of fraud made by the students, Justin, B Red’s manager, told TheCable LIfestyle that the shows were not organised by the record label.

Students of OOU had accused the singer of collecting concert ticket fees from them without performing.

His management admitted that he did not perform in OOU but accused the schools of failing to arrange transportation and logistics.

WHY FUTA, OOU SHOWS FLOPPED

Giving HKN’s account of the incidents, Justin said: “The first school was FUTA and found that nobody wanted to enter the hall. As at 8pm when we entered the hall, nobody was inside because there was no light and I stayed there personally and organised to get the generator on. We had spent money, brought a lot of upcoming artistes from Lagos, paid for hotel bills.

In OOU, Justin said the organiser secured “a venue outside the school and it would not have guaranteed students’ attendance”.

He said: “When I got there, it was too late to start changing venues. We were supposed to perform at Map Lounge, I got there and I joined them in cleaning up the place. They started telling me about this other hotel and club, Limelight, saying it was bigger than Map Lounge. I told them it was too late to change venues.

“A guy came and introduced himself as former social director of OOU and told me Limelight club wanted an appearance after the main show and that they had offered to give us hotel rooms because the organisers only booked two rooms, for how many people?.

“I called B Red who was on his way told him the offer. The guy said they would give B Red 50k on arrival and I said that is far below an appearance fee but because it won’t be a problem since we were already in Ago Iwoye. Knowing we had an afterparty in Ijebu Ode after the event, we agreed to go to Limelight for 50k, one suite and one room in Limelight hotel.

“When B Red arrived, he stayed in Limelight hotel, not the club. As soon as we got into Limelight hotel, we saw the owner, who happens to be the owner of Goldmyne. A lot of their people took pictures and videos including that one on Instablog. Less than five minutes we saw graphics on social media saying B Red would be performing live at Limelight.

“We dragged back and forth and people were leaving Map Lounge, the original venue. The manager was in tears and I assured him that I was on his side because I felt they wanted to steal his crowd so we left for Map Lounge immediately. The place was so scanty when we arrived and no artiste will like to perform 20 people because it would be recorded and it will affect his career, it would look like a flop.

“For that primary reason, we didn’t perform. However, to serve as evidence that he was there, we packed the bus inside Map Lounge compound and even bought barbeque there. Limelight club was filled up but we refused to perform there because we felt the guy was trying to play a fast one. We did not collect money, same happened in FUTA, the organisers collected money we didn’t know about.”

‘WHAT HAPPENED IN UI’

Justin described the show in the University of Ibadan as “fantastic” but that based on their prior experiences, they initially wanted to handle the sales of the tickets.

He said they, however, yielded when the students brought up the issue of time constraints.

Reacting to the allegations that HKN refused to share the ticket proceeds with the students, he said: “At the end, we counted 150 people that bought tickets before the show but they declared about 70 tickets.

“I called Muyiwa and told him the situation so he agreed that the tickets students were presenting was more than the money remitted. There were way over 300 people and N70,000 was what came out of ticket sales.”

As advertised by HKN Music, Dremo, Lil Kesh, Mayorkun and Wale Turner are meant to support B Red on the campus tour.