Following her bad performance at the Buyel’Ekhaya Music Festival in East London last week, Bongekile ‘Babes Wodumo’ Simelane has taken to social media to explain why she disappointed her fans.
In a video, she acknowledged that her performance was bad but said it was a result of her nonstop crying after being allegedly threatened by the festival founder and director, Mrs Hlubi Mazwai.
She alleged that Mazwai threatened her and made security guards forcefully take her to the stage, further threatening that she would send people to kill her.
She further apologised to her fans and promised to give them a better performance next time.
Watch the video she posted on Instagram below:
Check out a video of her performance below:
Following Babes Wowumo’s allegations, organisers of the festival also took to social media to respond to the Wololo hit maker’s allegations.
“Buyel’Ekhaya rejects with contempt the allegations placed by artist Babes Wodumo against Mrs Hlubi Mazwai, the founder and festival director of the Buyel’Ekhaya Pan African Music Festival.”
They said Babes Wodumo’s video was an attempt to “mislead” the public, further saying it was aimed at discrediting the Buyel’Ekhaya brand.
“This is an ill-conceived attempt to justify her poor performance, as well as her ill-discipline and undermining of the festival goers and people of the Eastern Cape.”
According to the statement, Babes Wodumo was paid a deposit in October. Her travel was also booked and fully paid for in the same month.
Following the payments, the organisers said they communicated all the details to her management, including her call time (1.35am) and performance time (2.25am).
However, things went sour when Babes allegedly failed to arrive at the airport, consequently failing to arrive timeously at the venue for her call time at 1.35am on 19 December 2016.
She also missed her performance time of 2.25am as she was still in the air aboard Black Coffee’s chartered plane and only arrived at the Buffalo Park Cricket Stadium at 3am.
“En route to the stadium Babes Wodumo made a demand, to our artist manager Sharif Baker, to go to her hotel to take a bath.
“This was rejected as she had to get on stage immediately as the Venue Operations Committee had resolved to switch the music off at the venue by 4.30am.”
On arrival, Babes allegedly refused to perform. This was when Mazwai was called to intervene in the situation.
This is what followed, according to their statement:
“Mrs Mazwai arrived and her actions were as follows:
“She called for VOC and the entire security cluster to immediately come to the artist marquee parking lot where Babes Wodumo was.
“She informed Babes Wodumo that her actions were undermining the people of the Eastern Cape;
“That she would have to explain to the people why she was refusing to perform;
“That her actions were posing a severe security risk for the event;
“When DJ Black Coffee got off stage after his performance, he was apprised of the situation. He offered his assistance and Mrs Mazwai then handed the situation over to DJ Black Coffee and Buyel’Ekhaya Production Manager Sam September to resolve with Babes Wodumo;
“The events described above show that Buyel’Ekhaya has acted in good faith, and with the necessary care and skill throughout the lifetime of the contract with Babes Wodumo.”
Read the full statement below:
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