Well-known artists including Hugh Masekela, Tshepo Tshola, Jabu Khanyile and Busi Mhlongo are furious because a prominent music promoter has not paid them for a concert in Port Elizabeth six months ago. Now their agent, Chissa Artists, has initiated legal action against the promoter, China Mpololo, to recover the outstanding R200 000.
Mpololo, vice-president of the South African Music Promoters Association, has evaded payment for six months, according to Basil Dube, national organiser of the Musicians Union of South Africa.
He said: “It is an outrage that a man in his position should be violating the basic rights of workers to receive a fair reward for their labour.”
The breach of contract does not only affect the main artists, said Irfaan Gillan, CE of Chissa, as about 60 artists, including band members, were affected by Mpololo’s actions.
“It is now been a month since we last heard from him. We had no alternative but to sue.”
Mpololo’s company, C Sun Promotions, organised the Port Elizabeth Homecoming Festival on December 31 last year. He signed a R200 000 agreement with the artists’ agent, Chissa, in September last year. Gillan said the contract stipulated that the artists would be paid a total of R200 000 for performing at the concert. But 50% of the fee had to be paid before November 27 2003.
Gillan said Mpololo had called him on November 27 to say that he had not been paid by the sponsors of the concert, the Nelson Mandela Metropole, and could, therefore, not make the payment. He was given two weeks by Chissa to come up with the money, but again had nothing to show when the grace period ended.
When the artists threatened not to perform unless they received the promised payment, Dube said, Mpololo was forced to write a cheque. But when Chissa deposited the cheque on January 2 this year, it bounced. At the end of the month the situation had not been resolved, despite numerous calls, apologies and meetings, he said.
At the end of January, when Gillan demanded an explanation, the promoter claimed that the sponsors had not paid him. Gillan says he then checked with the mayor of the Nelson Mandela Metropole and found that Mpololo had been paid in full.
Dube says some of the artists are struggling to make ends meet as a result of the non-payment. They were unable to pay their children’s school fees at the beginning of the year, and some have been threatened with eviction by their landlords.
“If you are not paid, it affects you adversely,” an unhappy Hugh Masekela told the Mail & Guardian. “If you earn money you budget for it. We have children, families that you have to support. It is a principle — if you hire people, you have to pay them. We as musicians do not have regular income and we depend on these concerts for a living.”
Dube says the door is still open for Mpololo to come to the union and resolve the matter, but that “the fact that he changed his cellphone number” was not a good sign.
China Mpololo could not be reached, despite several messages left for him.