By Yunus S Saliu
Two of Gambians rising musicians popularly known as O Boy and Gambian Child has disappointed their fans and people of island of McCarthy at the Janjangbureh Kankurang Festival held in the historical island on Friday, 29th January, 2021.
O Boy who supposed to perform alongside with Gambian Child quenched the kindle of the festival at night of the official opening of the two-day festival when he reluctantly appeared on stage at 2am Sunday morning to perform but later disappeared off the stage less than 15/20 minutes of the show.
Prior the festival, the local organizing committee (LOC) and Janjangbureh Youths pasted postal which has his picture and his partner Gambian Child everywhere in the community including neighboring town and villages and buying lots of air time on radios and TV stations for publicity of the show in the island.
More so, many tickets, their T-shirts were sold with lots of preparations.
At last, the duo rising musicians disappointed everyone most especially those that travelled all the way from the capital City of Banjul, Greater Banjul Areas among other places to Janjangbureh just to watch their show and enjoy the great ambience of the festival.
Speaking to this medium on Sunday at the festival ground in Janjangbureh, Omar Jammeh who was flabbergasted of the behavior of O Boy and Gambian Child explained that “the LOC met all their requirements as stated in the contract agreement but to our surprise O Boy and his partner Gambian Child did not deliver as per the contract agreement.”
To start with, he explained “O Boy told us that he doesn’t drink local or water from the tap unless but only package mineral/natural bottled water, he said he doesn’t sleep in local house or lodge, we must pay him full payment at least two days upfront before the show and lots of excuses which we fully abide with to make the show a success.”
All notwithstanding as he explained further that when it was time to come on stage O Boy refused instead “he come up with some pile of medicines saying that he is sick as he said ‘am not ready to make a show but just to honor the contract by performing for just only 30 minutes’ because he is sick.”
As everyone at the show can witness “he reluctantly come on stage at 2am and said the musical set is not good enough for him to perform and also he doesn’t perform without a stage
Omar however disclosed that the same musical set supplied by the Mighty Roots Foundation Sound “he (O Boy) has used as back-up to performed in different places in CRR including Wassu, so he’s lying to and Gambian Child on his own didn’t appear on stage at all.”
Majority of the fans condemned this act of the two rising musicians as Jarreh Mamudu from Greater Banjul Area described the act as insult and fraud.
“This is one of the reasons promoters will prefer working with foreign artists rather than working with some of this so called Gambians rising stars, they are too arrogant!” he said.
Mabel, a tourist from America said “it is awful and childish to see artist acting this way especially in their prime stage.”
Claudia, a researcher on Kankurang from Germany said “it will be very difficult for this type of artists to make it to any international festival in Europe. You should feel proud and happy as only identified artist to perform in this type of event, too bad.”