The Sunday Mail
Top Zim dancehall performers Soul Jah Love and Seh Calaz raked in US$250 per minute each during their Sting 2014 performance, which lasted less than 15 minutes at the City Sports Centre last weekend.
The two artistes played just 5 songs combined.
Having been promised a VW Bora each for their performances, they opted for cash and each got US$3 500.
Despite the fact that the show had to be cancelled after violence erupted, the artistes got their full payment, which is by far more than what most top sungura artistes are earning at their all-night shows.
Seh Calaz’s manager Godfrey Bakasa confirmed that Chipaz had offered them a vehicle for the performance but they opted for cash as the artiste already owns a fleet.
“Calaz already drives better cars so we just opted for the cash.
“We charged that much because the show was a clash and we also expected to perform at least two hours not the 15 minutes we ended up doing,” said Bakasa.
Soul Jah Love also confirmed the hefty pay cheque, but said he felt awful since they failed to give fans value for money.
“I feel an emptiness, I wish I could boast about it but it does not feel right because the fans ended up being short-changed,” said Soul Jah Love. The artiste, however, issued an apology to the fans and the show organisers. “It is difficult to tell exactly what happened but I feel as the headline acts of the night we could have done more to contain the situation and everyone could have gone home happy,” he said.
While Seh Calaz, real name Tawanda Mumanyi and Soul Jah Love, born Soul Musaka, were smiling all the way to the bank, it was not the same for top chanter Killer T. The Matapi-based artiste, whose signature chant “popopopopo” was at the centre of the rise of Zim dancehall, had a good day in office, but performed for free.
Killer T fell out of favour with music promoter Chipaz in August this year after the singer attacked the promoter through songs for not giving him a chance to perform at a City Sports Centre gig.
The Sunday Mail Leisure can reveal that Killer T had to beg the promoter at the show to play two songs but was allowed to play four.
After thrilling the 10 000-strong crowd, he played a few more songs, stealing the show in the process, but without getting a single dime.
According to the promoter, the rest of the artistes that were on the poster, the likes of Kinna, Ras Caleb, Terminator, Quonfuzed, Lady Squanda and Mostaff, to name just a few, went home happy but not as happy as Seh Calaz and Soul Jah Love.
Interesting to note, though, is that man-of-the-moment Tocky Vibes was not on the poster and so was Winky D, Sniper Storm, Shinsoman, Killer T and Guspy Warrior, the so-called big guns. Despite this, it was still a full house.
