Carisa Lee

Re­porter

Carisa.Lee@cnc3.co.tt

The or­gan­is­ers of Sat­ur­day’s R&B Brunch Fes­ti­val are ex­plor­ing their le­gal op­tions af­ter one of the head­lin­ers, Amer­i­can R&B singer Keyshia Cole, cut her per­for­mance at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah, Port-of-Spain, short.

In a press re­lease yes­ter­day, SCORCH Ltd and co-pro­mot­ers, AIR Com­mit­tee and Ricky Raghu­nanan Group of Com­pa­nies, said they had reached out to the book­ing agent to ad­dress a breach of the per­for­mance terms, as Cole was con­trac­tu­al­ly sup­posed to per­form for 45 min­utes.

In a post to her In­sta­gram sto­ries, how­ev­er, Cole said she was on­ly paid to per­form three songs and will have to come back and do a “re­al show.”

“That’s not okay, you guys want­ed and ex­pect­ed more, I’m so sad,” she wrote.

The re­lease said SCORCH Ltd CEO Kwe­si “Hy­pa Hop­pa” Hop­kin­son en­tered in­to a for­mal per­for­mance agree­ment with an en­ti­ty act­ing as the du­ly au­tho­rised rep­re­sen­ta­tive and book­ing agent for Cole. Un­der the terms of that agree­ment, it said Cole was en­gaged to per­form a 45-minute mu­si­cal set, and SCORCH Ltd ho­n­oured its full fi­nan­cial oblig­a­tions un­der the con­tract, in­clud­ing pay­ment of the agreed per­for­mance fee and in ad­di­tion to cov­er­ing all ac­com­mo­da­tion, hos­pi­tal­i­ty, and tech­ni­cal rid­er re­quire­ments.

“The per­for­mance de­liv­ered by Ms Cole was sig­nif­i­cant­ly short­er than what was con­trac­tu­al­ly agreed with the agent,” the re­lease stat­ed.

Many peo­ple who at­tend­ed the brunch took to so­cial me­dia to ex­press their dis­ap­point­ment at the sit­u­a­tion.

One com­menter said, “Keyshia Cole per­formed 4 songs in HOME clothes with a sneak­ers and GONE.”

An­oth­er said, “Mo­ment of prayer for the peo­ple who wait­ed 3 hours in Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah for Keyshia Cole... (she left af­ter two songs).”

The or­gan­is­ers stat­ed that the out­come was en­tire­ly be­yond the con­trol of SCORCH Ltd and its part­ners, not­ing they up­held every as­pect of its oblig­a­tions in good faith to fa­cil­i­tate a suc­cess­ful and com­plete per­for­mance.

Tick­ets for the event were priced at $500 to $2,000.

Dur­ing her vis­it here, the singer, known for mega-hits such as Love, I Should’ve Cheat­ed and Let It Go, was al­so seen vis­it­ing KFC at Movi­eTowne.

Ja­maican dance­hall artiste Dex­ta Daps al­so per­formed at the event.