OT­TO CAR­RING­TON

Se­nior Re­porter

ot­to.car­ring­ton@cnc3.co.tt

Lo­cal pro­mot­ers are call­ing for a re­view of how lo­cal mu­si­cal acts are treat­ed.

The call comes af­ter the high­ly an­tic­i­pat­ed One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val failed to de­liv­er head­line act Adid­ja "Vy­bz Kar­tel" Palmer, whose book­ing re­port­ed­ly cost a stag­ger­ing US$1.35 mil­lion.

Kar­tel failed to come to Trinidad af­ter re­ceiv­ing US$950,000 of his fee and laid the blame on the pro­mot­ers, say­ing they failed to make the fi­nal pay­ment be­fore his sched­uled ar­rival in T&T.

Oth­er mu­si­cal acts like Siz­zla (Miguel Collins) and Moliy (Moliy Ama Mont­gomery) al­so failed to per­form de­spite al­ready be­ing in the coun­try, ar­gu­ing that the pro­mot­ers al­so did not meet con­trac­tu­al arrange­ments with them.

Lo­cal tal­ent booked for the con­cert, in­clud­ing La­dy La­va, Iw­er Go­erge, KMC and Ravi B, at­tend­ed and de­liv­ered.

Two on­line tick­et com­pa­nies have since in­di­cat­ed they will re­im­burse pa­trons their mon­ey, while the TTPS and the Min­istry of Fi­nance have launched sep­a­rate probes in­to how the pro­mot­ers were able to ac­cess over a mil­lion US dol­lars giv­en the cur­rent forex cri­sis be­ing ex­pe­ri­enced.

The pro­mot­ers, Ja­cho En­ter­tain­ment Ltd, are yet to pub­licly ad­dress what tran­spired via a me­dia con­fer­ence.

Con­tact­ed as the fall­out from the con­cert con­tin­ues, long­stand­ing pro­mot­er Randy Glas­gow, of Randy Glas­gow Pro­duc­tions, said the in­ci­dent should serve as a wake-up call.

“What hap­pened with the Vy­bz Kar­tel show is a turn­ing point. It’s ab­surd to pay an over­seas act $9 mil­lion and then hag­gle with our own artistes over a few thou­sand. We have tal­ent that dri­ves Car­ni­val and brings glob­al at­ten­tion to Trinidad. Why shouldn’t they be paid ac­cord­ing­ly?” Glas­gow asked.

“Lo­cal stars must be re­spect­ed, and that means meet­ing their ask­ing prices. This in­cludes our so­ca and chut­ney per­form­ers who car­ry the cul­ture on their backs every year. Imag­ine Machel Mon­tano, Kes the Band, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Na­dia Bat­son, Ravi B all be­ing told to low­er their fees while for­eign acts get a blank cheque. That’s not just dis­re­spect­ful, it’s bad busi­ness.”

Glas­gow said it was iron­ic that some lo­cal pro­mot­ers failed to recog­nise the worth of home­grown tal­ent.

“This is an in­dus­try where, iron­i­cal­ly, lo­cal pro­mot­ers are the ones who un­der­val­ue lo­cal acts. But if we keep that up, we’ll lose the cul­tur­al au­then­tic­i­ty that makes our events spe­cial,” Glas­gow said.

How­ev­er, lo­cal broad­cast­er and en­ter­tain­er Jerome “Rome” Pre­cil­la al­so un­der­scored the need for artistes to be hon­est with them­selves about their mar­ket val­ue.

“I don’t know any lo­cal artistes who can pull a crowd like Vy­bz Kar­tel,” Pre­cil­la said.

“You just have to be re­al with your­self as an artiste be­cause a pro­mot­er is a busi­ness­man or busi­ness­woman. They’ll pay you based on the size of the crowd you could pull.

“A lot of artistes aren’t con­trol­ling their own pric­ing. They wait for the mar­ket to de­cide. But we need to start act­ing like pro­fes­sion­als in a busi­ness. Know your met­rics, know your fan­base, and don’t un­der­sell your­self.”

Mean­while, Trinidad and To­ba­go Copy­right Col­lec­tion Or­gan­i­sa­tion (TTC­CO) pres­i­dent Ansten Isaac said there needs to be struc­tur­al change that pro­tects and em­pow­ers lo­cal acts, par­tic­u­lar­ly in state-spon­sored events. He pro­posed the in­clu­sion of sep­a­rate pay cat­e­gories for non-lo­cal acts.

“We’re too gen­er­ous as a na­tion. We roll out the red car­pet for for­eign acts, but our own peo­ple have to beg to get paid fair­ly. I’m not say­ing don’t pay big for in­ter­na­tion­al tal­ent. I un­der­stand the draw. We once gave Be­y­on­cé US$1 mil­lion. But let’s not for­get the eco­nom­ics. We don’t even in­vest that way in ed­u­ca­tion or in­fra­struc­ture. That’s a mis­align­ment of pri­or­i­ties,” Isaac said.

The TTC­CO pres­i­dent said that con­cert fees should re­flect an artiste’s abil­i­ty to sell tick­ets.

“If a lo­cal artiste can bring 3,000 or 5,000 pa­trons, pay them like a head­lin­er. That’s how the con­cept of ‘head­lin­er’ was born, based on draw, not na­tion­al­i­ty.

“Let’s cre­ate a mod­el where so­ca, chut­ney, and ca­lyp­so artistes are sup­port­ed at the same fi­nan­cial lev­el as reg­gae or in­ter­na­tion­al pop stars. It’s time for eq­ui­ty, not char­i­ty, just fair­ness,” he stat­ed.

Guardian Me­dia al­so con­tact­ed so­ca su­per­star Neil “Iw­er” George, who per­formed at the event on Sat­ur­day, and en­ter­tain­ment mogul An­tho­ny “Chi­nese Laun­dry” Chow Lin On but both de­clined com­ment.