MUSICIANS across the country have urged their fellow artiste, Yo Maps, real name, Elton Mulenga to retract his utterances regarding the funeral of late celebrated artiste Dandy Krazy stating that his words were not only disrespectful to the family of the deceased but also a big blow to the music industry.
Two days ago, Yo Maps took to social media bragging about how he allegedly fed the thousands of people wnd musicians that attended the funeral. But his fellow musicians have through the Zambia Association of Musicians (ZAM) condemned his utterances stating that Yo Maps was not even the biggest contributor at the funeral.
According to ZAM president Davison Munsanda, Yo Map’s words have injured the Zambian music industry especially that the words were uttered at the time when the family of Dandy Krazy were still in mourning.
In an interview with Kalemba this afternoon, Munsanda stated the funeral of the late was handled collectively with different stakeholders coming in from all walks of life. He emphasised that there were artistes and other stakeholders holders who actually contributed to the funeral more than what Yo Maps contributed and never publicised their generosity.
“It’s unfortunate that his utterance has injured a lot of artistes. We want him to refrain from such comments. As it is, the funerals were collectively handled by all artistes across the country who contributed effectively, raising enough funds for the funeral for all the four funerals. And whatever was contributed by artistes in their individual state was their own engagement. For us as a sector, we collectively handled the funeral. All the musicians contributed massively. Others didn’t even publicise their contributions.”
“We advise him to withdraw his statement and consider better ways of whatever means to reach out to whoever he’s having a dispute with. We will have a conclusive report on how the funeral was handled. The family is still mourning and this is not the right time to talk about that,” stated ZAM president.
He added: “It’s unfair for someone to start speaking like they fed the entire funeral home. No he wasn’t the biggest contributor because we even have other artistes who did more than him and never publicised, other stakeholders gave more. What Yo Maps gave was just a fraction of what everyone else contributed. We even raised more money from [Dandy Krazy’s tribute Concert ] at Scream (Night Club).”
He further condemned those who are entertaining what Yo Maps said in his video stating that the act is a sign of poor digital culture. Munsanda called on all artistes to continue showing unity regardless of their differences.
“We feel even those who are entertaining poor digital culture habits to refrain from such. We urge artistes to continue showing unity and avoid taking one side of things. We believe our brother didn’t speak well and he could have done better. It’s a matter we are looking at amicably and we will sit with our brother,” he said.
Munsanda added that Yo Maps should find a way of apologising to the family of Dandy Krazy for the disrespect he has shown.
“We feel Yo Maps should find a way forward of reaching out to the family to apologise because we feel when he did that it was in good faith. But it has turned out sour from his utterances. He may not have targeted all the artistes but he knows the person he was talking about, he could have reached out to him.”
The ZAM leader further told Kalemba that musicians had raised a lot of money for the late Dandy Krazy of which the figures will soon be announced.