adminNAIROBI. – Fast-rising South Africa-based Amapiano Deejay Chiedza Mangena, alias DJ Chichi, is stranded in Nairobi, alleging she was duped by a Kenyan promoter.
DJ Chichi — who specialises in playing South Africa’s Amapiano music that is gaining popularity across the world — arrived in Kenya almost two weeks ago for what she says was to be a series of performances and a media tour organised by a promoter, who goes by the name Chris Black.
This would have been the first time the two were meeting in-person having met on social media site Instagram, when Chris, who is said to have Ugandan roots, sent her direct messages and proposed that they work together.
“He slid into my DM sometime in June and asked if I would like to join the tour by Guchi (a Nigerian musician) when she performed here (Nairobi) in July. I was supposed to come at the same time, but I couldn’t make it because of unavoidable circumstances,” DJ Chichi told the Sunday Nation.
A month later, Chris is said to have contacted her again. “This time, he told me we could now do the tour from any date between September 8 to 27.
“I told my manager who is based in Dubai, who then spoke to Chris (Black) and both settled on September 27 as the date I would travel to Kenya,” she says.
DJ Chichi adds that before packing her bags for Kenya, being her maiden performance tour outside South Africa, she and her manager had kept asking the promoter to provide them with the details of an “artist rider” — a set of specified demands to facilitate the performance — that they had supposedly agreed on.
“My manager and I persistently asked Chris to furnish us with details that included the accommodation and means of transport I would use during my stay,” she says, adding that the promoter was evasive.
Nonetheless, the DJ said she bought her ticket to Kenya as agreed, hoping the promoter would keep his side of the bargain.
“I honestly don’t know what they agreed with my manager but he advised me to just come for this tour with a view it would help grow my brand,” DJ Chichi says.
However, despite the constant communication with the promoter, there was no written agreement.
DJ Chichi travelled to Kenya alone, without her manager, but alleges Chris continued with the assurances that he had lined up a number of performances.
Once in Kenya, DJ Chichi was picked up by Chris at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport. She claims that she was initially taken to an apartment that was “small, creepy, stuffy and smelt of wet paint’’.
“After I complained, he moved me to another that was overcrowded with people I didn’t know, the majority being men. When I asked, he would tell me some are sponsors, others are video crew and all manner of answers. I had no privacy and it didn’t feel safe for me,” she says. – The Nation
Mathew Masinge
Online Reporter