Maskandi star Buselaphi Gxowa has hit back at fellow artist Siphesihle ‘Fihliskhwele’ Magubane after he accused her of exploiting him and leaving him unpaid after a performance in KwaZulu-Natal.
Fihliskhwele said that he accepted the booking in good faith, prepared for the performance and incurred expenses, only to walk away without the money he was expecting.
Now Buselaphi has offered a different version of events, insisting that she does not exploit fellow artists.
She said that Fihliskhwele was not even supposed to be on the lineup in the first place.
“I am disappointed by this because Fihliskhwele was not even in the lineup but someone begged me to include him and I did that,” Buselaphi said.
“There was never any agreement between us. Someone asked me to include him in the lineup, so I agreed and said we would see how things went. I don’t even have his number, yet he has gone on social media and tarnished my name. Honestly, I feel like I should sue him,” she said.
Her response comes after Fihliskhwele took to Facebook to complain about allegedly not being paid for the performance.
In a video clip which has since been removed, the artist said he did not want to publicly embarrass Buselaphi because of their longstanding relationship, but accused her of exploiting him.
“I don’t want to embarrass Buselaphi because I’ve known her for years but what she’s doing to me is pure exploitation,” he said.
He said bookings were particularly important to him because opportunities to perform were not always easy to secure.
“I don’t normally get bookings so when I get a booking I make sure I prepare myself with the hope that I’d get paid. However I don’t get paid and I don’t like it,” he said.
The financial consequences, he said, extend beyond himself.
“I’m disheartened because I’ve got bills to pay such as rent. I’ve got kids to take care of and I’ve got dancers to pay. When I don’t get paid I’m badly affected,” he said.
Buselaphi, however, says the problem lies elsewhere.
She said she had told Fihliskhwele that Computicket had not yet paid over money from ticket sales.
“I’ve been in the music business for 33 years and I don’t exploit fellow artists. I told him that Computicket hasn’t given us the money for ticket sales,” she said.
But when asked whether other artists had also not been paid, Buselaphi directed the question back to Fihliskhwele.
“You can ask Fihliskhwele, he has that information,” she said.
Asked whether Fihliskhwele had been responsible for booking artists, she said: “I didn’t say that. By the way, this was not my event. I was merely an ambassador.”
That explanation raises a crucial question: if she was merely an ambassador, why was she the person explaining why an artist had allegedly not been paid?
Buselaphi also promised to provide the contact details of the event organiser so that the matter could be put directly to them.
She did not provide the number.
At the centre of the dispute, however, is a simple question that remains unanswered: who was responsible for paying Fihliskhwele and why was he not paid after performing?
Neither the alleged event organiser nor Computicket has been independently heard on the matter.
