Manager of dancehall superstar Bounty Killer has vehemently denied claims the deejay was stoned during a performance in Guyana on Sunday.
“That is total bull,” Jones-Griffith told The STAR yesterday. Instead, he blamed the premature end of the ‘Ignition Concert’, hosted by Wildfire Promotions on techinal difficulties.
According to Jones-Griffith, Bounty Killer was the headline act on the show which was packed with thousands of fans waiting to see the artiste, when numerous technical difficulties caused the artiste to end his set early.
“The sound system chipped out like three or four times. Eventually the whole power went and the engineers were trying to fix the problem, the whole time Bounty wasn’t his usual cross angry miserable self, he stayed on stage exuding great patience to give his fans a full performance,” Jones-Griffith explained.
He continued, “there was a lot of microphone problems as well. Bounty stayed on, still thanking the crowd for their patience, by the time the problems were fixed the police came on stage saying it was past the curfew time and he had to come off stage. The crowd was pissed that they hadn’t gotten to see him.”
This, is what Jones-Griffith claims caused the fracas.
However a report from the Caribbean Media Corporation, CMC, suggested that the deejay was shouted and ‘stoned’ off stage when he refused to adjust his anti-gay stance.
According to Jones-Griffiths Bounty Killer, whose real name is Rodney Price, was already off stage when objects were being thrown. “A lot of people were there to see Bounty Killer so how could he have gotten stoned?” Jones-Griffith said.
There were also reports of shots being fired before the deejay went on stage and again during his performance.
The report however supports at least part of Jones-Griffth’s account, naming “constant audio mishaps and an abrupt end to the show” as elements that “enraged patrons who paid up to US$25 (JA$1775) to enter the National Park for the event.”
The report said that Bounty was in defiance of “public appeals for him to tone down his lyrics”, and instead “performed many controversial songs”.
Patrons reportedly shouted at the deejay: “Come off the stage and go home!” before they “hurled cans and bottles on to the stage.”
Managing Director of Wildfire Productions, Jonathan Beepat, said that police fired two warning shots to control the crowd after Bounty Killer’s performance was interrupted by the audio cut-off.
However, police have denied firing any shots.
Beepat told reporters after the show that his organisation had spoken with Bounty Killer about his “controversial anti-gay stance and violent lyrics, four times before his performance.”
“But he (Bounty Killa) had no regard for this when he took the stage, he even ignored warnings from his manager,” Beepat said.
However Jones-Griffith denied speaking to Bounty about this. He told the STAR that he did come on stage to talk to the artiste, however it was to inform him of what was happening with the generator problems.
The CMC reports that the local gay community in Guyana had lobbied the organisers not to allow the Jamaican artiste to bash gays during his performance.
Source: JamaicaStar
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