I had a great chuckle last weekend listening to Sizwe Dhlomo and Siyabonga Ngwekazi on Yfm. The two present a hip-hop dominated show between 09:00 and 12:00 on Saturdays and Sundays. During the show Siyabonga told a story of how the South African Music Awards organisers approached him to MCee at the launch of this year’s awards this week. Of course seeing this as a potentially door-opening opportunity, young Scoop was considering it. Until money came into the picture.
MCees do command good sums of money, especially experienced ones. I’ve heard of a guy who got paid R70 000 one night to MC at a SASOL function. The SAMAs are the biggest music awards in the country, often likened to the Mzansi Grammies. Little Scoop – an Audi A1 ambassador, taking all this into account, brought up the subject of money and got the shock of his life. Apparently the SAMAs have lost a major sponsor, are consequently broke and would not be paying him a cent to MC! All they were offering was a room for the night. Yeah, let the man work all night and pay him in kind. Suffice to say he wasn’t impressed with their offer and promptly told them to shove it.
I’d be interested to learn who they got to do the gig and if that someone gets paid at all. If not I’d have to wonder WHY they accepted. If so, why pay one guy and not the other?
Having moved from their usual venue at Sun City, no thanks to loss of sponsorship, the 2011 SAMAs will no doubt be quite a drab affair. I remember the last installation I attended in which we were not even offered food after the event. Only booze was available and even that was through sponsors Heineken.
PICTURE FROM OWEN S MANAGEMENT
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