Chief Stylz, the manager of Stonebwoy, has given a blow-by-blow account of how the performance of his artiste at the 2023 Tidal Rave was interrupted leading to a chaotic scene on stage which almost marred the beautiful event.
In his account, Chief Stylz criticized Sarkodie's official DJ, DJ Mensah, for making unfavorable comments that led to his reaction.
According to Chief Stylz, although his artiste got to the venue hours before the scheduled time, organisers told them there had been a change in the running order and many artistes were yet to perform, hence, Stonebwoy would perform later than scheduled.
While the news was unwelcome, Stonebwoy's team agreed to comply. However, during Stonebwoy's performance, the organizers informed Chief Stylz that they needed to curtail Stonebwoy's set due to time constraints. Chief Stylz found this news unfortunate, as he pondered how to convey this change to Stonebwoy, who was already on stage.
“Just when we started performing, the producer came and there are some other artistes waiting to perform so is it possible to cut and do 30 minutes instead of 45?” Chief Stylz recounted. “I said Stone is already on stage, how do I pass this communication to him because we’ve programmed our performance for 45 minutes.”
In his Tuesday interview on Hitz FM monitored by GhanaWeb, Chief Stylz expressed his unhappiness about the way things unfolded. He mentioned that he successfully communicated to Stonebwoy the time constraints and the need to wrap up the performance although it was challenging. However, the situation took a messy turn when DJ Mensah appeared on stage to set up, and this was accompanied by some unfavorable comments made by Mensah.
“We were performing and people kept coming back and forth,” he said. “It’s a lapse on their part because we’ve travelled around the world with Stone playing a lot of events, working with different productions. Everybody is earmarked to be at a certain place at a certain time. If you’re not supposed to be on stage, clearly, you’re not supposed to be there. But this is Ghana."
He continued: “While we were on stage performing, other people kept coming back and forth but my attention was on the DJ and Stone performing. Eventually, we had just about two songs to finish. That was when I saw DJ Mensah. He had a laptop behind me.
"He started talking and casting insinuations and I was like ‘Ah, Mensah, what’s the problem?’. Some of the words he used, I don’t want to say them. I wasn’t happy with what he was saying so I confronted him. Actually, that’s what prompted the guys and the security to move to the stage. It was purely between me and Mensah and eventually, the microphone went off.”
Despite host Andy Dosty's efforts to have Chief Stylz reveal the specific words used by DJ Mensah that he considered insulting, Chief Stylz remained unyielding. He did, however, mention that DJ Mensah stated they had exceeded their allotted time, suggesting they should shorten their performance.
Meanwhile, Chief Stylz said he could not tell who put the microphone off during Stonebwoy’s performance. He, however, rejected suggestions that it could be a technical challenge.
“No, it could have been a technical challenge,” Chief said. “Somebody intentionally switched off the microphone. I can tell you for a fact that somebody intentionally put off the microphone.”
Chief Stylz stated that Sarkodie's manager mounted the stage to maintain sanity after he was told about the scuffle.
Stonebwoy; DJ Mensah