Charma Gal too expensive for Tlatsa Lebala
Spira Tlhankane | Thursday April 27, 2017 14:13
Kast told Showbiz in an interview that he would have liked to include the Sekuta singer but the cost of her performance hindered that effort. Alongside Vee, Charma Gal is one of the artists whose performance costs more than P25,000.
While Vee pledged to donate his P30,000 worth of performance to Tlatsa Lebala, Charma Gal had never made any promises or shown any attachment to the event. “They didn’t include me in the lineup last year so I can’t really know so go and ask the relevant people,” Charma Gal told Showbiz.
Crowd pullers like Franco are already there in the lineup, a popular artist like Charma Gal would have been a good addition to the formidable lineup. Although majority of her fans didn’t manage to see the Sekuta hitmaker during her pre-launch in the last holidays, they were looking forward to seeing the Chika dance singer.
Kast said over 90% of the artists in the lineup have pledged to perform for free therefore it would have been unreasonable to pay one artists that much. He added that the reason they beefed up the lineup with live bands was because last year’s lineup was full of urban genres like hip-hop. He said they could not include all the artists because the timeslot doesn’t allow. “We have over 60 artists and the lineup was full and exceeded the available timeslot,” he highlighted.
He said he would like people to support the event because it is for local music rather than individual artists. “This is about Batswana, this is for everyone who showed interest because no artists can fill up that stadium alone, we need each other,” he said.
Another surprise snub is Dramaboi who was featured in last year’s lineup. Kast said the reason Dramaboi is not there is because he will be on tour on the same date. “We have long announced the dates for the tour last year before Kast announced his date for Tlatsa Lebala,” Dramaboi’s manager Itumeleng Garebatshabe told Showbiz. Garebatshabe said they could not postpone the date because they have committed money in to the tour. “It wouldn’t make business sense,” he said. Garebatshabe however said they have told Tlatla Lebala organisers about this and there is no bad blood. He said there was never a contract so nothing binds them to the event.
The event scheduled for May 6 at the National Stadium is geared towards local music and to prove that local artists can pull a crowd and fill up the national stadium without a foreign act.