Ozone Magazine published an article on Monday citing several club promoters who claim that Gucci Mane‘s management cheated them out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. The management team, which consists of booking agents Johnnie Cabbell and Debra Antney, is being accused of signing bad contracts.
“Johnnie [Cabbell] is the grand vampire,” claimed Chicago promoter Godfather, who has been promoting concerts for over two decades and estimates that he lost almost $100,000 working with Gucci’s managers. “I don’t work with Johnnie anymore,” he said. “He sucks the blood out of you.”
In July 2009, Gucci Mane headlined the ‘So Icey’ tour along with OJ da Juiceman and Nicki Minaj. However, all three of the artists failed to show up for the first scheduled shows in Florida, according to Ozone, leaving promoters to suffer losses of over $140,000. Out of the twelve shows that were scheduled, Ozone claims that six or more shows never happened, enraging promoters who clamored for refunds but were denied.
In mid-July, Gucci Man violated his probation and went to jail during the ‘So Icey’ tour. Promoters claim that Gucci‘s managers signed contracts for shows (through booking agency Ujaama Entertainment), knowing the rapper wouldn’t be able to show up and perform. However, because of convoluted contractual language involving more than one party (promoters, managers, artists, and record labels), promoters are finding it hard to get their money back.
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“I’m not sure if it’s on purpose,” said attorney Paul W. Gardner who will be representing one promoter, “but [the way the contracts are written up] are very nasty and sinister. It’s multi-layered. From a legal standpoint, when someone does something wrong to you, you can sue that person. Person A sues Person B; laymen understand that [concept]. But the problem arises when a middleman is included and the person on the backend does the harm. Person A has to sue Person B to get to Person C, but in this situation, Person B’s contract says ‘You can’t sue me.’ With the [So Icey Tour] contracts, Person A is the promoter. Person B is Ujaama, Person C is Johnnie, Person D is [Debra], and E is the artist…Because of the difficulty of the third-party situation, I have to prove which party has the money…Or maybe it’s all of them.”
It is not clear how much Gucci Man receives from these deals, although promoters revealed that artists receive little to nothing of advanced deposits. The money, they claim, goes straight into the pockets of managers. Cabbell and Antney could face charges of federal fraud if taken to court.
