It has come to my attention that the unfortunate incident that occurred at the Nokia “Don’t Break The Beat” competition on Saturday the 28th of April 2012, where RMG (Muna's management company) artiste Muna was a Presenter, and Nigerian rap icon Mode 9 was a Judge, has turned into a media/blog frenzy.
This unfortunate misunderstanding happened on stage, and the verbal exchange between Muna and Mode 9, even though it started out as opinions quickly escalated into what I’m sure we all have seen in the clip posted on the Internet by Nigezie.
Mode 9 and Muna did not have any pre-existing misunderstanding or “beef” before the Nokia event. Muna’s brief as a Presenter, aside introducing the Contestants and asking the Judges for their remarks and scores, was to add more banter to the judging process, this she had done very well and incident free throughout the Zonal “rap battles” in cities like Lagos, Enugu, Benin and Abuja.
As Muna’s management, we are duty bound to take care of this situation professionally, issue statements and all that, but as I’m in a privileged position and I know all parties involved personally, including co-judges Rogba (CEO, Knighthouse) and DJ Jimmy Jatt, I had called everyone involved to sort out this unfortunate issue amongst ourselves the morning after the incident. The clip of the incident surfacing on the Internet only just re-ignited what we’ve been trying to diffuse since the very next day.
Like I said, we all have seen the video clip, and the interviews that followed, and of course the onslaught of comments on the internet, the justified, the objective, the insults, the threats of violence and of course a few sensible and supportive ones as well. Time will tell if Muna and Mode 9 trending on Twitter would prove to be a good thing and we’ll all get together and laugh about it later.
Muna is a fast rising talent in the rap game, this was recognized by Nokia who gave her the opportunity to appear in their TV commercial and also present the “Don’t Break The Beat” competition which was a massive success. The brand also showed some street cred by employing the undisputed knowledge of rap in appointing Mode 9 as the Head Judge at the Finals. We would like to thank Nokia and the team at YDx for putting together a successful competition.
Lastly, I would like to reiterate that this issue will not be resolved publicly and played out in the media or on blog pages for the amusement and enjoyment of gossip junkies and gist merchants. I’m sorry to disappoint those who are waiting with their mouths open, there will be no leaked emails, back and forth exclusive interviews or Twitter “gangsterisms”.
At least not from our side, and as you all know, Mode 9 is big a man enough not to subscribe to media hype over something that, quite rightly, he took as disrespectful but not life threatening.
This is Hip Hop, not the Civil War Part 2.
Ayo Shonaiya
The RMG Company
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