Musicians fight over Bullets game money
There was drama at Warehouse, Blantyre on Saturday evening when some music artists and Music Association of Malawi (MAM) top officials nearly got into a fight over money collected during a game between Big Bullets and musicians.
The artists led by the Maloto hit maker Mlaka Maliro, bass guitarist Peter Likhomo and Saul Chembezi took to task the organizers of the game in a controversial verbal war, demanding to be paid game allowances.
According to one of the organizers who opted for anonymity, the musicians could not be cooled off until they were paid K1,500 each .
The member told Nyasa Timesthat the artists behaved in a manner that leaves a lot to be desired.
“It was not like we organized the game to make money for artists, it was done in aid of MAM and Geofrey Zigoma who is currently in need of cancer operation, but Mlaka and his friends looked at the who issue differently.
“They run berserk demanding the money. They even confronted MAM official Paul Simakweli who was handling the cash, but was told the money was being kept by somebody else and Mlaka rushed into offering his car to go and collect the money from the person, it was all a disaster,” said the member.
But in an interview, Chembezi while dismissing claims that they nearly fought over the money, argued that all what they did was to ask for game allowances which they were promised.
“Initially we were told that we will be paid something after the game and all what we did was to ask for the money. Of course there was a problem because some of the officials were trying to play games over the issue but we insisted to be paid because we knew if we didn’t demand for the money they will not pay us,” said Chembezi.
Chemebzi said there were indeed verbal disagreements between the two parties but they did not fight each other.
Surprisingly, the issue has been running on internet especially the social network, Facebook in which several artists have questioned the manner in which Mlaka and his friends demanded the money.
According to comments, some question why the artists were demanding the money when the game was played in order to raise funds in aid of troubling Bullets and fellow musician Zigoma.
MAM and Khalidwe Wear Company organized the game between Big Bullets and musicians which ended 4-0 in favor of Bullets. The game was part of initiative to raise funds to support MAM projects as well as assisting Bullets and ailing Zigoma.
The game raised, according to officials, K400, 000 which was later shared. MAM, Bullets and Khalidwe wear got 30 percent and Zigoma pocketed 10 percent.
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