Dru Hill agent taking legal action on Malawi cancelled trip: Umodzi Park breached contract

American music group, Dru Hil was forced to cancel its Malawi concert after the organizers, Peermont Hotel managers of Umodzi Park breached contract agreement with the group six times, Nyasa Times can reveal.

Umodzi Park managers hired a South Africa-based agent, Archie Tigere of Tigere Media to facilitate Dru Hill’s performance on December 12th, but the show was cancelled two days before, with the organizers claiming it was all due to a dispute between the artist and the agent.

Tigere was arrested by police on December 10th- two days before the concert- for allegedly obtaining money by false pretence. He pocketed 35,000 rands (about K2million) from Umodzi Park.

He was later released on December 16th after the charge was dismissed by Lilongwe Magistrates Court.

But Nyasa Times can reveal that Dru Hill failed to perform in Malawi was all due to Umodzi Park officials’ failure in meeting contractual obligations.

It has been found out that Umodzi Park officials- General Manager, Neal Sewnarain, Finance Manager, Jaco Malan and Sales and Marketing Manager, Temwa Kanjadza- breached their contract with Dru Hill six times in total with regards to performance fee payment timelines.

Nyasa Times can also reveal that as organizers, Umodzi Park failed to meet accommodation and flight bookings, which were part of the deal.

It is understood that the agent, Tigere Media was supposed to fund Dru Hill’s USA -RSA flights and Umodzi Park was supposed to book the RSA – Malawi return flights, which they could not do as of Wednesday December 9th, forcing the group to cancel the concert.

When contacted Umodzi Park Sales and Marketing Manager, Temwa Kanjadza cut the line the moment this reporter introduced himself. She could not answer her phone when contacted later on.

But on Friday, Archie Tigere could not confirm or deny that they are contemplating taking legal action against Umodzi Park over his arrest.

”The magistrate’s court dismissed Umodzi Park’s claim. That then means I was arrested wrongfully and my character was deformed in the process via print media and social media,” argued Tigere.

”Whether we will sue Umodzi Park for this or not, that’s a topic my lawyers and I have to discuss right now and our decision might not be made public”.

Tigere accused Umodzi Park officials of trumping-up charges against him just to save their own faces despite his effort for the concert to materialize.

”I travelled to Malawi on my own three days before Dru Hill was supposed to arrive so that I can prepare for their arrival and assist Umodzi Park’s outsourced technical team on the technical rider for Dru Hill.

”Umodzi Park took advantage of my being arrested and ran to the newspapers painting Tigere Media and myself as fraudulent business entity and or a scam of a company thereby deforming my character to save their own faces”.

He further argued that Dru Hill’s no show was not their fault and neither was it Tigere Media’s own fault, claiming Umodzi Park know exactly what happened.

”As the project management company we kept them (Umodzi Park) up to date with all the progress, raised issues and risks most of which were ignored for some reason,” he explained.

He added: ”If we wanted to tarnish the culprits names as they did with my name to save their faces when they got me arrested, we would have shared these correspondences with the media but our business etiquette does not allow us to do so as there are proper channels to follow for that”.

After the concert was cancelled the organizers promised to fully refund those who bought advance tickets through various selling points in Lilongwe, Blantyre and Mzuzu.

Dru Hill is composed of four members namely Sisqó, Jazz, Nokio and Tao. The group was most popular during the late 1990s, with a repertoire that included R&B, soul, hip hop soul and gospel music.

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