Wi­Pay founder, Point Fortin-born Ald­wyn Wayne, of­fi­cial­ly launched LIVE Events Inc, an en­ter­tain­ment com­pa­ny spe­cial­is­ing in con­cert fund­ing, tick­et­ing, pay­ments, and man­age­ment, dur­ing the BET Awards red car­pet event held in down­town Los An­ge­les on Sun­day night.

The com­pa­ny was found­ed by Wayne and the chief mar­ket­ing of­fi­cer of the Wi­Pay group Kib­we Mc­Gann.

In a news re­lease, the di­rec­tors of the com­pa­ny said LIVE Events Inc aims to fill a void in the en­ter­tain­ment mar­ket by de­liv­er­ing high-qual­i­ty con­certs and ex­pe­ri­ences to the Caribbean re­gion.

The Wi­Pay ex­ec­u­tives said the new events man­age­ment com­pa­ny was in­spired by the suc­cess of their pre­vi­ous ven­ture, WiFete, a car­ni­val con­cert held in Ja­maica in April fea­tur­ing renowned so­ca artists Machel Mon­tano, Bun­ji Gar­lin, Nailah Black­man and Skin­ny Fab­u­lous.

The con­cept was born to en­able pro­mot­ers in the re­gion to max­imise the po­ten­tial of the events in­dus­try by pro­vid­ing the nec­es­sary op­er­a­tional in­fra­struc­ture and sup­port.

LIVE Events Inc aims to rev­o­lu­tionise events in the Caribbean with an all-on­line plat­form that pro­vides a unique form of fund­ing for events and con­certs based on tick­et­ing, in-event pay­ments, and spon­sor­ship man­aged through a sin­gle por­tal.

“We have had a num­ber of suc­cess­ful meet­ings over the past few days with tal­ent agen­cies, pro­duc­ers, net­works, and in­vestors here in LA.

“We’re ex­cit­ed to bring some of the great­est en­ter­tain­ers to the Caribbean,” said Ald­wyn Wayne.

“Our com­pa­ny is ded­i­cat­ed to of­fer­ing a com­plete event-in-a-box so­lu­tion that en­com­pass­es bar man­age­ment, pay­ment pro­cess­ing, event ex­e­cu­tion, pub­lic re­la­tions and fund­ing.

“We want to re­de­fine the event land­scape and pro­vide a plat­form for ma­jor in­ter­na­tion­al and over­seas acts to bring their tal­ents to the Caribbean.”

Mc­Gann added that Wi­Pay’s in­volve­ment in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try grant­ed it valu­able mar­ket in­sights, en­abling them to iden­ti­fy ex­ist­ing gaps.

“Through our role as a pay­ment pro­cess­ing com­pa­ny, fa­cil­i­tat­ing trans­ac­tions for the Love Damani Tour head­lined by Bur­na Boy in Mi­a­mi, Trinidad, Bar­ba­dos, and Ja­maica, we have recog­nised the im­mense po­ten­tial for ma­jor event ex­pe­ri­ences in the Caribbean.

“With this re­al­i­sa­tion, our mis­sion at LIVE Events is to pro­vide a com­pre­hen­sive turnkey event man­age­ment so­lu­tion specif­i­cal­ly tai­lored to in­ter­na­tion­al fes­ti­val or­gan­is­ers who as­pire to host events in Caribbean cities.

“Pre­vi­ous­ly, pro­mot­ers would have been hin­dered by in­fra­struc­ture lim­i­ta­tions, pay­ment so­lu­tions, and fund­ing con­straints.

“These or­gan­is­ers will now have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring their events to life with our sup­port,” said Mc­Gann.

The Wi­Pay ex­ec­u­tives said that with a pas­sion for ex­cel­lence and a deep un­der­stand­ing of the Caribbean’s vi­brant cul­ture, LIVE Events is poised to re­shape the events in­dus­try by de­liv­er­ing un­par­al­leled en­ter­tain­ment ex­pe­ri­ences.

By lever­ag­ing mar­ket ex­per­tise and in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach­es util­is­ing tech­nol­o­gy, Live Events aims to open the Caribbean up to the world’s largest events.

BET awards 2023

The 2023 BET Awards cel­e­brat­ed 50 years of hip-hop with trib­utes to the genre’s ear­li­est voic­es, late leg­ends, and new tal­ent dur­ing a show packed with spec­tac­u­lar per­for­mances that con­sis­tent­ly felt like a par­ty.

Sun­day’s biggest sur­prise came when Qua­vo and Off­set, the sur­viv­ing mem­bers of Mi­gos, per­formed Bad and Bou­jee in front of an im­age of Take­off, who died in a shoot­ing in No­vem­ber.

“BET, do it for Take,” the duo shout­ed near the be­gin­ning of their set, as their back­drop switched from the im­age of a space shut­tle to one of Take­off point­ing in the air.

Through­out the show, whether it was Tu­pac, No­to­ri­ous BIG, Biz Markie or Pop Smoke, per­form­ers and em­cee Kid Capri paid homage to late hip-hop stars, of­ten by quick­ly high­light­ing a taste of their best-known hits. In a show where few awards were giv­en, Capri and BET kept the em­pha­sis on the mu­sic.

Bus­ta Rhymes took home the night’s biggest ho­n­our, the Life­time Achieve­ment Award, hand­ed to him by Swizz Beatz.

The 12-time Gram­my Award nom­i­nat­ed rap­per, pro­duc­er, and pi­o­neer­ing hip-hop fig­ure is wide­ly re­gard­ed as one of the great MCs, with sev­en Top 10 Bill­board Hot 100 hits to his name.

Did­dy, Janet Jack­son, Chuck D, Mis­sy El­liot, Phar­rell Williams, and Mari­ah Carey record­ed a video trib­ute to Rhymes.

“Al­right, Im­ma wear it on my sleeve. I do wan­na cry,” Rhymes start­ed his speech, as his eyes start­ed to wa­ter.

He talked about his six chil­dren, be­ing kicked out from his hip-hop group Lead­ers of the New School, and learn­ing how to re­build by go­ing in­to stu­dios, shar­ing a cig­ar with who­ev­er was in the stu­dio, and “quick­ly whip­ping up a 16 bar verse...By de­fault, I pi­o­neered the fea­ture,” he said.

“A lot of great­ness from out peo­ple in our cul­ture is by de­fault. Be­cause it’s just a mag­ic we have.”

At the end of his ac­cep­tance speech, Rhymes urged the hip-hop com­mu­ni­ty to “stop this nar­ra­tive that we don’t love each oth­er,” urg­ing vet­er­an mu­si­cians and new­com­ers alike to em­brace one an­oth­er.

Through­out the show, old school hip-hop he­roes and mod­ern stars mixed it up on­stage, per­form­ing tracks cel­e­brat­ing rap’s most in­flu­en­tial cities and in­no­va­tion.

For Mi­a­mi, Trick Dad­dy and Tri­na rocked through Nann and Un­cle Luke took on I Wan­na Rock (Doo Doo Brown). For At­lanta, Jeezy ripped through They Know, TI hit 24’s, and Mas­ter P did No Lim­it Sol­diers in­to Make ‘Em Say Ugh.

And for hip-hop’s reg­gae in­flu­ence, Ja­maica’s Doug E Fresh and Lil ’Vi­cious did an acapel­la ver­sion of Freaks, Mad Li­on per­formed Take It Easy, and PA­TRA nailed Ro­man­tic Call.