A le­gal bat­tle is brew­ing over Bur­na Boy’s re­turn to this coun­try.

The Gram­my Award-win­ning Niger­ian sen­sa­tion, who graced the stage dur­ing To­ba­go Car­ni­val in Oc­to­ber, ar­rived in Trinidad again last night for a con­cert at O2 Park in Ch­aguara­mas tonight.

But a dis­pute among pro­mot­ers who were all al­leged­ly ini­tial­ly in­volved in or­gan­is­ing the event cre­at­ed an air of un­cer­tain­ty over whether the con­cert will go on as planned.

On Wednes­day, at­tor­ney for Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers Pro­mo­tions, Mari­ka Trim, is­sued a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter to Twist­ed En­ter­tain­ment Bar­ba­dos, Cae­sar’s Army, SM Pro­mo­tions, Duke Con­cept and Unit­ed Tal­ent Agency over the mat­ter.

In the let­ters, Trim not­ed that by a con­tract dat­ed Oc­to­ber 6, 2022, be­tween Space­ship II, Inc F/S/O/ Bur­na Boy and Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers Pro­mo­tions, it was pro­posed that the artist would per­form in Trinidad at the Hase­ly Craw­ford Sta­di­um on De­cem­ber 16.

This con­tract was un­signed by the artist and signed on­ly by Michael Durham, of Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers

The at­tor­ney said an­oth­er un­signed con­tract from the artiste but signed by Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers was dat­ed Oc­to­ber 10. She ex­plained that the fi­nal con­tract, dat­ed Oc­to­ber 11, was signed for the artiste and by Michael Durham of Cash Mon­ey Broth­ers.

Ac­cord­ing to Trim, “In pur­suance of the fi­nal agree­ment, our client sub­se­quent­ly se­cured the book­ing of North Park at the Queen’s Park Sa­van­nah to host the con­cert on the 17th of De­cem­ber 2022 via a let­ter of ap­proval dat­ed the 21st day of Oc­to­ber 2022.”

She said there­after, from in or around the month of Oc­to­ber 2022, via What­sApp mes­sen­ger and email, her client shared cer­tain con­fi­den­tial and pro­pri­etary in­for­ma­tion with Shawn Moses of SM Pro­mo­tions, Crys­tal Cun­ning­ham of Twist­ed En­ter­tain­ment Bar­ba­dos and Osi­ta Ugeh of Duke Con­cept in an­tic­i­pa­tion of their col­lab­o­ra­tion as in­vestors and or­gan­is­ers for the show with cog­nizance of their ex­per­tise with­in the en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

The at­tor­ney said by email on Oc­to­ber 23, Dane Durham, a part­ner of Cash Mon­ey, ad­vised Duke, a di­rect con­tact to the artiste, that they were ready to make their de­posit for the show and pay­ment to­wards the pri­vate jet, as he had a signed con­tract from the Unit­ed Tal­ent Agency and en­quired whether to pro­ceed with pay­ment.

How­ev­er, Trim said sev­en days lat­er, an email from Chris­t­ian Bern­hardt, al­so an agent of Bur­na Boy, in­formed her client that the con­tract was “void be­cause you didn’t come through on the orig­i­nal agree­ment and kept rene­go­ti­at­ing.”

Trim ac­cused So­bian, Moses, Cun­ning­ham, Ugeh and Unit­ed Tal­ent Agency of con­spir­ing with one an­oth­er to sub­se­quent­ly en­ter a con­tract to book Bur­na Boy, in con­flict with the agree­ment and arrange­ments made with her client and pro­ceed­ed to pro­mote and sell tick­ets for the Bur­na Boy con­cert card­ed for De­cem­ber 16, know­ing this would re­sult in los­es to her client.

Trim said, “In these cir­cum­stances, we call up­on you and de­mand that you im­me­di­ate­ly cease and de­sist from con­tin­u­ing all plans, pro­pos­als and con­firmed arrange­ments re­gard­ing the Bur­na Boy—Love Dami­ni Tour—Trinidad that you have re­cent­ly changed its venue to O2 Park Ch­aguara­mas and card­ed for the 16th day of De­cem­ber 2022.”

She de­mand­ed that her client be com­pen­sat­ed for all monies spent by him thus far in prepa­ra­tion for the con­cert. They were giv­en till 2 pm yes­ter­day to com­ply or face High Court pro­ceed­ings.

How­ev­er, in a me­dia state­ment yes­ter­day, Twist­ed En­ter­tain­ment told fans the event sched­uled for tonight was still on and “will be a su­per con­cert”.

It said, “Re­gret­tably, false and ma­li­cious mis­in­for­ma­tion has been spread that the con­cert may be in jeop­ardy and that Bur­na Boy may not ap­pear. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth.”

It added that every­thing is in place for the con­cert and as­sured all le­gal and con­trac­tu­al re­quire­ments had been met.

Last evening, Trim told Guardian Me­dia that she had re­ceived a cou­ple of re­spons­es to the le­gal let­ters. She said they had been asked to “hold our hand” un­til the oth­er pro­mot­ers are able to re­spond prop­er­ly.

“How­ev­er, she said, they plan to head to the High Court to­day to file their doc­u­ments.

Ed­i­tor’s note: Guardian Me­dia is a me­dia part­ner to the Bur­na Boy con­cert.