Daniel Vanderpuye, CEO of Cruise People Limited, says he did not want to arrest musician Black Sherif for allegedly breaching a contract between them.
Speaking to Joy Entertainment, he said that his company had booked Black Sherif for a now-cancelled show scheduled for August 19 and made a down-payment of $20,000 out of an agreed $40,000 ahead of the event.
As a result, when he failed to send an agreed-upon 10-15 second video promoting his participation, they used every available channel to contact him and his team and received no response for nearly two months.
“Gramps Morgan was in Ghana, he called the team and they called his bluff. Papa Logic, Baba Sadiq, and Amakye Dede’s folks all reached out and they called their bluff. I didn’t want to go on this tangent so I used all available human resources to reach out to the team,” he told Kwame Dadzie.
He said that they reached out to the police in June who, in turn, called Black Sherif’s team many times prior to his arrest but “they were ignored.”
“The police will not just wake up and arrest Black Sherif. We submitted everything based on what happened and they secured an arrest warrant and informed immigration. So immigration stopped him, handed him over to the police,” Mr Vanderpuye added.
This comes after Black Sherif was arrested for breach of contract at the Kotoka International Airport on Wednesday, shortly after arriving in Ghana.
READ ALSO: BLACK SHERIF’S ALLEGED ARREST AT KOTOKA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT
According to sources close to the musician, he was booked for the event and paid a $20,000 deposit out of the $40,000 booking fee.
The source also says the contract did not include a requirement for promotional videos for a press launch ahead of the yet-to-be-held event.
Despite threats of contract cancellation and lawsuits, the singer’s agents chose to refund the initial deposit, but the event organizer insisted on being reimbursed $50,000 rather than the initial $20,000 fee he paid.
They noted that Black Sherif’s agents find the request unfair and inconsistent.
However, Mr Vanderpuye insist that a promotional video was part of Black Sherif’s obligations.
“How is Afro Cruise jam going to come on?… he has totally derailed the process. If we take your word that he will come to an event how sure are we that he is going to come on that day?” Mr Vanderpuye queried.
He pointed out that the $20,000 was not the only money spent since they began planning the event.
“We want our money and not only that…We paid Multimedia Group to have an out-of-studio broadcast here to promote the event. We have released a press statement and stated our losses. When we finally sent the money, we went ahead to pay for the cabins not all, but we did a deposit and because of that they could not sell to the public.”
“We didn’t agree on any other thing. There were two things he was supposed to do. One was to send money and he does the video. I was supposed to take care of his flights, hotels, and other things. If you give me the video I start promoting when the date is due. I buy you your flight, and you go after the performance. In fact, he wasn’t invited, he was arrested,” Mr Vanderpuye concluded.
Check out more videos on Chronixx Live TV
