It seems that A Tribe Called Quest’s Phife Dawg and Ali Shaheed Muhammed will not be making out to Australia later this year, as the agent who booked the shows has turned out to be a dirty shyster.
Here’s what the press release has to say
It is with deep regret that we must advise that Phife Dawg & Ali Shaheed Muhammad’s November tour of Australia has been cancelled.
The tour was booked via an agency representative advertised on Phife Dawg’s myspace. The agent in question, James Richardson of Abstrakt Visions Entertainment.
Unbeknownst to us at the time we booked the tour, James Richardson and Abstrakt Visions Entertainment had been responsible for a string of frauds in relation to falsified tour dates for several different artists in Europe earlier in the year including Lil’ Kim, Phife Dawg and Chip Fu.
Despite meeting with artist management for Phife & Ali in Australia, discussing the tour and undertaking a photo shoot in connection with promotion and marketing for the tour, the fact that the tour dates were nothing more than an elaborate scam did not come to light until a few weeks ago, when it became apparent that the ‘agent’ for the tour had embezzled over $20,000 in tour deposits and defrauded Peace Music.
Despite undertaking crisis talks with artist management over the last week and confirming our willingness to make good on the financial commitment made to Phife & Ali despite the losses sustained in connection with the fraud, management made an understandable decision not to proceed with the tour on Wednesday this week.
Legal action is underway in the UK to bring James Richardson and Abstrakt Visions Entertainment to justice, however we are not hopeful of recovering any of the defrauded funds.
We also engaged talks regarding a possible class action with the European promoters defrauded by James Richardson.
We here at Peace Music wish to express our most sincere regret to all those who purchased tickets in connection with this tour.
