An­na-Lisa Paul

Se­nior Re­porter

an­na-lisa.paul@guardian.co.tt

The much-an­tic­i­pat­ed ap­pear­ance of Adid­ja “Vy­bz Kar­tel” Palmer at the sold-out One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah (QPS) in Port-of-Spain end­ed in dis­ap­point­ment yes­ter­day, as the dance­hall star failed to take the stage.

While his ab­sence was blamed on the pro­mot­er’s al­leged fail­ure to pay the full US$1.35 mil­lion fee, or­gan­is­ers in­sist­ed that US$950,000—more than three-quar­ters of the amount—had al­ready been de­liv­ered.

Palmer, who was ad­ver­tised as the main act in the event, was said to have been paid up­front and had been ex­pect­ing the re­main­der of the monies by yes­ter­day.

An of­fi­cial ex­plained that the In­di­an Ar­rival Day hol­i­day on Fri­day pre­vent­ed the com­ple­tion of the fi­nan­cial trans­ac­tion be­tween Palmer and One Caribbean Mu­sic. De­spite sev­er­al ex­pres­sions of “good faith” to Palmer and his team, the of­fi­cial said, the sit­u­a­tion reached a stale­mate.

Sun­day Guardian was told that Palmer had re­quest­ed pay­ment via a sin­gle bank trans­fer.

The missed op­por­tu­ni­ty to fi­nalise the trans­ac­tion on Thurs­day prompt­ed the pro­mot­er to reach out to busi­ness part­ners in the US. Twen­ty-two of them agreed to pool their cash re­sources and de­liv­er the re­main­ing fee to Palmer in Mi­a­mi by cheque.

The of­fi­cial stat­ed that af­ter the ini­tial of­fer was re­ject­ed, a new pro­pos­al was made to Palmer—this time in­volv­ing the trans­fer of four con­do­mini­ums in Trinidad, each val­ued at $2.9 mil­lion, to the artiste al­so known as World Boss.

“This was all done as acts of good faith to show him we were se­ri­ous,” the of­fi­cial said.

He fur­ther ex­plained that fol­low­ing Palmer’s ap­pear­ance in Trinidad and his sub­se­quent re­turn to Mi­a­mi, they would have com­plet­ed the bank­ing trans­ac­tion to­mor­row. A last-ditch ap­peal was made by One Caribbean Mu­sic for Palmer to per­form at the event “even for one hour, and we as­sured him the re­main­ing monies would have been paid still”.

But de­spite these ef­forts, the of­fi­cial said, “They were all re­ject­ed.”

The of­fi­cial ex­pressed hope that Palmer would have ac­cept­ed the of­fers, not­ing that their pri­ma­ry con­cern was the thou­sands of pa­trons ex­pect­ed at the QPS last night to see him per­form.

Al­though the show was not can­celled, the of­fi­cial ac­knowl­edged that some form of com­pen­sa­tion may need to be of­fered to pa­trons. This, they added, would be dis­cussed and de­cid­ed up­on in the com­ing days.

Palmer’s team an­nounced just hours be­fore the sched­uled start that he would not be ap­pear­ing, trig­ger­ing anger among pa­trons and putting se­cu­ri­ty of­fi­cials on high alert as they pre­pared for any even­tu­al­i­ty.

The Sun­day Guardian con­firmed that 165 po­lice of­fi­cers had been as­signed to the event on ex­tra du­ty, with two emer­gency teams from the Guard and Emer­gency Branch (GEB) on stand­by.

How­ev­er, fol­low­ing the an­nounce­ment of Palmer’s non-ap­pear­ance, se­nior po­lice of­fi­cials in­di­cat­ed ad­di­tion­al GEB per­son­nel along with of­fi­cers from the In­ter-Agency Task Force and the De­fence Force would have been called out.

In a re­lease around 4 pm yes­ter­day, Palmer’s man­age­ment team ad­vised he would not be ap­pear­ing as billed.

They al­leged this was “due to the non-ful­fil­ment of con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions by the event pro­mot­er”.

Palmer’s team added, “De­spite nu­mer­ous ef­forts to re­solve the is­sues over the past cou­ple of months, the pro­mot­er was un­able to ful­fil the stip­u­lat­ed re­quire­ments as out­lined in the per­for­mance agree­ment.”

Reaf­firm­ing Palmer’s com­mit­ment to “de­liv­er­ing cap­ti­vat­ing and un­for­get­table per­for­mances for his fans”, they stat­ed, “We can­not in good con­science al­low him to par­tic­i­pate in an event where the or­gan­is­ers have not ho­n­oured their ba­sic con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions. We val­ue pro­fes­sion­al­ism and re­spect in all busi­ness deal­ings, and we ex­pect the same in re­turn.”

Thank­ing the Gov­ern­ment for grant­i­ng Palmer per­mis­sion to en­ter the coun­try to per­form for the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val, his team was “hope­ful that he will be able to per­form for lo­cal fans in the fu­ture”.

They thanked all of Palmer’s sup­port­ers for their con­tin­ued love and un­der­stand­ing, with an of­fer to “bring­ing you more great mu­sic and per­for­mances soon”.

As news of Palmer’s ab­sence spread, An­gos­tu­ra stat­ed that it is “not af­fil­i­at­ed with, nor re­spon­si­ble for the pro­duc­tion, man­age­ment, or cre­ation of the One Caribbean Mu­sic Fes­ti­val”.

In a re­lease, An­gos­tu­ra’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Judy Kan­hai said, “It is un­for­tu­nate that Vy­bz Kar­tel and the event pro­mot­er did not reach an agree­ment on their con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions.”

She con­firmed An­gos­tu­ra had an event agree­ment with the pro­mot­er as a brand spon­sor through their flag­ship White Oak rum.

“As a brand spon­sor, which is the show­cas­ing, dis­play and sale of our brand at the event, we have ful­filled all our oblig­a­tions to the event pro­mot­er,” she as­sured.

Moliy al­so pulls out of show

The show ad­ver­tised artistes in­clud­ing Malie Donn, Chron­ic Law, Rvss­ian, and The Ruf­f­cut Band—along­side head­lin­ers Moliy and Siz­zla Kalon­ji.

Last night, Ghana­ian singer Moliy, known for her hit Shake It to the Max, an­nounced via her In­sta­gram sto­ry that she would no longer be per­form­ing at the show.

She shared that she ar­rived in Trinidad ex­cit­ed to per­form, but since land­ing, had re­ceived no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the or­gan­is­ers. She added that her de­ci­sion was al­so due to "their fail­ure to meet key con­trac­tu­al oblig­a­tions", which made it im­pos­si­ble for her per­for­mance to pro­ceed.

While de­scrib­ing the sit­u­a­tion as "deeply dis­ap­point­ing", Moliy stat­ed that she and her team "re­main com­mit­ted to work­ing with part­ners who val­ue pro­fes­sion­al­ism and mu­tu­al re­spect".

She ex­pressed ap­pre­ci­a­tion for the con­tin­ued love and sup­port and said she was tru­ly look­ing for­ward to con­nect­ing with her Trin­bag­on­ian fan base. Moliy hopes to re­turn to Trinidad and To­ba­go "at the right time and un­der the right cir­cum­stances"—ready to Shake It to the Max.