The CEO of Cruise People Limited, Daniel Vanderpuye says he initially did not want to get musician Black Sherif arrested for allegedly breaching a contract between them.
Speaking to Joy Entertainment, he said that his company had booked Black Sherif for a now-cancelled show scheduled for August 19 and made a down-payment of $20,000 out of an agreed $40,000 ahead of the event.
Hence, when he failed to send an agreed 10-15 second video advertising his participation they used every available avenue to reach out to him and his team and for nearly two months got no response.
“Gramps Morgan was in Ghana, he called the team and they called his bluff. Papa Logic, Baba Sadiq, and Amakye Dede’s folks all reached out and they called their bluff. I didn’t want to go on this tangent so I used all available human resources to reach out to the team,” he told Kwame Dadzie.
He said that they reached out to the police in June who, in turn, called Black Sherif’s team many times prior to his arrest but “they were ignored.”
“The police will not just wake up and arrest Black Sherif. We submitted everything based on what happened and they secured an arrest warrant and informed immigration. So immigration stopped him, handed him over to the police,” Mr Vanderpuye added.
This comes after the police arrested Black Sherif for breach of contract at the Kotoka International Airport on Wednesday after he arrived in Ghana.
Sources close to the musician confirmed he was booked for the event and paid an initial deposit of $20,000 out of the $40,000 booking fee.
The source also says the contract did not include a requirement for promotional videos for a press launch ahead of the yet-to-be-held event.
Amidst the threats of cancelling the contract and lawsuits, the singer’s agents chose to refund the initial deposit but they said the event organiser insisted on being reimbursed $50,000 instead of the initial $20,000 fee he parted with.
They noted that Black Sherif’s agents find the request unfair and inconsistent.
However, Mr Vanderpuye insist that a promotional video was part of Black Sherif’s obligations.
“How is Afro Cruise jam going to come on?… he has totally derailed the process. If we take your word that he will come to an event how sure are we that he is going to come on that day?” Mr Vanderpuye queried.
He noted that the $20,000 is not the only money they have spent since they started planning the event.
“We want our money and not only that…We paid Multimedia Group to have an out-of-studio broadcast here to promote the event. We have released a press statement and stated our losses. When we finally sent the money, we went ahead to pay for the cabins not all, but we did a deposit and because of that they could not sell to the public.”
“We didn’t agree on any other thing. There were two things he was supposed to do. One was to send money and he does the video. I was supposed to take care of his flights, hotels, and other things. If you give me the video I start promoting when the date is due. I buy you your flight, and you go after the performance. In fact, he wasn’t invited, he was arrested,” Mr Vanderpuye concluded.
Source: myjouonline.com
