Reggie Nkabinde Of Mabala Held A Press Conference But We Still Have More Questions Than Answers

by Phil Chard

After the serious allegations mounted against them by Julius Malema on Friday afternoon, Mabala Noise owner and ANC Youth League Treasurer General, Reginald Nkabinde decided to get out ahead of the scandal and convene a press conference of his own where he addressed a number of issues regarding the allegations laid against him and his company.

In response to how Mabala Noise is funding it operations and the allegations of an illegal relationship between the government , the ANC and the record label, Mr Nkabinde has this to say

“Mabala Noise is not doing business with any government.You are all welcome to go to the departmewnt of water affairs and seek a report about Malabla Noise. Malaba noIse is not doing any tender[s]”

In response to where the Mabala Noise gets its money, Mr. Nkabinde was defiant and openly declared that he has never received any funds directly from the ANC to fund Mabala Noise . He openly expressed that he was a businessman and he used the proceeds from his other businesses to fund Mabala’s operations.

“Mabala is an independent black owned company. It is not getting funding from anywhere else [besides Mr. Nkabinde himself]”

Major League G-42

Riky Rick at Major League Gardens

When asked about the potential conflict of interest that could occur if Mabala artists are booked to perform at ANC Youth League events (an organisation where Mr Nkabinde is the Treasurer General) he expressed that he was in business and running Mabala Noise long before he was elected into current position as the Treasurer General , yet he failed to actually answer the question. Whether he has been running the company for 5 weeks or 5 years the fact that he holds an active position within the company will present a massive conflict of interest if the man responsible for overseeing ANC Youth League funds is paying artists that work for his company.

In response to the insinuations made by Mr Malema about Mr Nkabinde's relationship with Minister Nomvula Mokonyane, Mr Nkabinde described it as as a mother and son relationship.

However when asked asked to address one of the biggest questions we have all had about Mabala Noise, a question I have had from long before Malema's accusations - about what Mabala Noise is offering these artists, Mr Nkabinde once again failed to provide to concise answer. He also kept referring to Riky Rick as Riky Riky which I found very amusing.

“Riky Rick[y] it's a public knowledge that he charges R65,000.[per performance] . There’s never been a weekend where Riky is not working . Just in a weekend Riky Rick[y] maybe he has 2,3 shows. When you calculate that in a month, it tells you that Riky Rick[y] as an individual, as an artist he is able to make R500,000 to R600,000 . And that on its own suggests that Riky Rick[y] can live a comfortable life as artist so why go and sell yourself for 5 million when you can live to live comfortably and he has been an independent .”

Major League G-15So let's use the figures provided by Mr Nkabinde and use some rough calculations and estimations. Please note these are not based off any actually figures. If Riky is doing 2 shows a weekend at R65,000 that comes to R520,000 a month in gross revenue. Riky doesn’t have a band , so let's assume that his tour DJ is taking 20% and a manager/ booking agent taking another 20%. That estimation leaves Riky with R312,000 a month. Which is R3,744,000 a year. That's a pretty decent living wage. So the question remains Mr Nkabinde. By your own admission, Riky was earning upward of R3.7 million a year (we have not factored in brand endorsements), so why would he sign onto your label for anything less that what he was already earning? Even if you subsidise the costs of music and video production. Why would he sign onto a label when he was doing pretty well for himself as an independent ? (those are also your words)That R5,000,000 figure does not seem so far fetched now that you have given us a glimpse into Riky’s earning potential. (Sidebar; get your paper Riky)

This press conference seems to have left more room for new questions rather than addressing the ones raised on Friday. I am still wondering about the conflict of interest if Mabala artists are booked for ANC gigs . I am still wondering how lucrative these contracts are and what their details are; does Mabala own all the publishing rights? Is it a 360 degree deal? Do artists have signing bonuses and album budgets?

Juju The Magnificent

While we ask these questions we should not let Mr Malema distract us from the fact that this whole incident might have been inspired by sour grapes. Besides what you may think of him or how the media paints him, Mr Malema is a very intelligent man who has used smoke and mirrors on a number of occasions to twist the narrative in his favour. Throughout his conversation on Friday Mr Malema continued to reiterate that his small upstart of a political party could not keep pace financially with the ANC and their main opposition the DA. According to Mr Malema the ANC spent R1 Billion where the DA spent R350,000,000 and the EFF pledged to spend no more than R10,000,000 on their campaign budgets. We should also not forget that artist like Cassper Nyovest, Riky Rick and Major League seemed to have aligned themselves with the EFF as well performing at EFF events.

We Used To Be EFFriends - Curated tweets by PhilChard

Now every artist has the right to be compensated for their work and they are free to perform at events organised by any political party , even if that means performing at a party they may not necessarily support. But in all honesty, South Africa might be free a country but it is not THAT free. Just ask iFani about the fallout after he accepted a DA cheque. We also have the tweet spectacle AKA made on about Cassper , Riky Rick and Major League returning to ANC from the EFF. The timing of their return, just before the elections and just after signing their deals at Mabala is more than curious. (as far as we know Cassper is still independent and has he has no affiliation with Mabala) .

There is clearly more to the Mabala story that meets the eye , whether or not all these questions will be answered remains to be seen. At the very least I hope this results in an incredible record label versus political party musical beef that is on levels we have never seen before.

Riky just dropped his new FAIRFAX freestyle where he declares “when you see me going up you wanna see me going down, every time I need you , you never come around “ . Considering the fact that the video dropped just 4 days after Julius’ statement sit is high likely that this song was recorded before the allegations. But we can always speculate can’t we ?