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![\"\"](\"http:\/\/desihiphop.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/11\/stranger.jpeg\" "\\"stranger\\"")
\nI asked them about the statement that Jamal had put out. One party was lying but who was it? Culture Shock went into great detail to lay down exactly what had gone on.<\/p>\n
We all know the drama surrounding the Culture Shock and Stranger Family tour being cancelled but it was the Canadian band that spoke out first. They announced that they would be staying in the UK to do a tour and that they had not been fully paid by Jamal Hirani, manager of the Stranger Family. It was only after they put out a video blog, that Jamal made an official statement in which he said the following, \u201cIt is very disappointing that they put a blog out stating that they have received no payment which is a complete lie. The reality is that there was no buzz on Culture Shock in the UK and they did nothing to help create any.\u201d<\/p>\n
I decided I wanted to get to the bottom of this once and for all, so I caught up with Baba Kahn, Lomaticc and Sunny Brown before their Manchester gig to find out the truth. As I asked the guys how the shows they had already done had gone, I could tell they were running on adrenaline as they told me, \u201cGlasgow was good, Bradford was really good, Newcastle was decent, what was the other one? Birmingham, that was really good. Tonight, it\u2019s Manchester and then\u2026\u2026Birmingham again. Sorry, I\u2019ve lost all sense of time,\u201d Baba apologises.
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\nI asked them about the statement that Jamal had put out. One party was lying but who was it? Culture Shock went into great detail to lay down exactly what had gone on.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very simple; the contract was set up saying we would get paid on certain dates. The Stranger Family had no success in trying to break the American\/Canadian market and we have a very strong foundation out there. Jamal came to us and asked us to do a track with the Stranger Family so we met Mumzy Stranger and the guys a couple times, hit it off, felt a vibe and decided, yeah, let\u2019s do this. We are very particular about our collaborations because our group has a very unique sound. We\u2019ve done very Official remixes with artists like Britney Spears and Lady Gaga and we get paid a hefty sum for them.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Culture Shock then went back to Toronto, got the XOXO single finished and by the time they got back to the UK to start the tour, Jamal had provided an initial deposit which covered flights and a next payment was due Nov 1- the start of the tour. He reassured the band that he had made a wire transfer and they went ahead with the tour. \u201cWe asked our manager (Rinku Ghei) what was happening with the money and he sat down with Jamal and said the payment is 4 or 5 days overdue, Jamal then showed us a wire transfer confirmation and said to our faces the wire transfer is going through so, after 3 days we wondered where is it? In London \u2013 one day prior to Birmingham show, Jamal dropped us off at the hotel and that was when we got a very funny vibe, because, he could barely afford to pay for the hotel.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur manager then started to make calls. We were realizing here we were touring across the UK and most cities we were going to hadn\u2019t even received the XOXO single nor did they know about the tour! We then discovered Jamal hadn\u2019t paid promoters, bus drivers, radio advertisements, tv stations and sponsors and began servicing the track as best as we could to media outlets. The Promotion for the tour was grossly mismanaged. We are artists and all we have is our reputation and we won\u2019t let anyone mess with that. We are not here to take anyone\u2019s money, we give our music out for free and the only way we make money is by performing. We have never missed a show, NEVER.\u201d <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It was then that Culture Shock decided to enough is enough. We are upset, our fans are upset, there is no promotion happening and everything is completely unorganized. Culture Shock\u2019s manager, Rinku sat down with Jamal to sort out the finances and offer a settlement to the contract, Baba tells me that Jamal refused to pay, \u201cHis excuse was, \u2018I paid you guys a deposit and you guys have no draw in the UK.\u2019 It doesn\u2019t say in our contract that we have to promote ourselves. Who would be ignorant enough to enter into a ludicrous contract like that? That just tells me how ignorant and stupid the guy we are dealing with is. All I can do is laugh. It makes me angry because it\u2019s such a silly, stupid thing to say. If he thought we weren\u2019t successful enough, why would he come to us for the deal? We didn\u2019t pursue him, he pursued us. If we don\u2019t have any draw, why are you coming to us? Why did you agree to pay this much money?<\/p>\n
\u201cLet\u2019s look at the facts, number 1, we put the XOXO single up on YouTube and got 33,000 views. They got 5,000. Who\u2019s got the pull in the UK? Please enlighten me. Number 2, we have 50,000 Facebook fans and that\u2019s just Culture Shock. Lomaticc has another 40,000, Sunny has another 20,000 and I have another 10,000. The Stranger Family have 4,000. So, who\u2019s got more pull? Deal me facts, don\u2019t deal me bullshit and we\u2019ve never been accused of purchasing fans. If we were wrong, why would 99.9% of the UK back us? Artists including Surinder Rattan, RDB, Metz n Trix, the list goes on called us and said, whatever you need, whatever you need, whatever you need.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe could have got back on a plane and left. We\u2019re not about that. We said there\u2019s no point, just because one guy wants to mess with our reputation, we all said we are not going. The UK is a major market. We are successful in Canada and the States and we want to get bigger. Any statement that Jamal has made, I\u2019m just not going to entertain stupidity. Talking to him right now is like talking to a child. It\u2019s a silly statement that has no relevance. He could have given us some money but he literally just said no.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven The Stranger Family backed us, but, I always say, your management is a representation of you as an artist. Simple, we don\u2019t want an idiot for a manager but your image and how you want to be shown is your prerogative. We didn\u2019t agree to sell out the tour for him. You have to understand something, Jamal didn\u2019t tell us something was wrong, we figured it out. Lomaticc had an idea that something was off when Jamal couldn\u2019t even muster up 60 pounds for a hotel room. From day one, we could have said we aren\u2019t going on stage until that payment\u2019s made, but we didn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
As Rinku ads, \u201cFor 3 days I asked Jamal if he had rescheduled the Glasgow show- for 3 days I could not get an answer! At that point we were done. It was apparent they just did not care and I give a lot of respect to Char Avell and Ramee who spoke out and publicly denounced Jamal\u2019s actions. Where was Mumzy? Jamal hid behind a very poorly constructed press release based on subjective opinion. I mean in 24hrs I was able to put together 5 shows for our fans and he couldn\u2019t reschedule even one and the best part was not one of those shows did anyone ask me for a contract. As I mentioned before credibility is built by actions not contracts.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was apparent that the guys were upset with the whole situation but the point was they were still here in the UK and they were doing the shows for the fans. They explained that money is not their driving force and the fact that they have always put their music out for free, totally backs up that statement. At the end of the day, it is the principle that a contract was signed by both parties and it wasn\u2019t respected by Jamalwhen an artist is booked it clearly states in the contract full money to be paid regardless of shows happening or not Culture Shock being human asked Jamal for a settlement which he ignored and walked away from. At that point they decided to allow their legal to handle the situation and get back to focusing on what was most important \u2013 their fans. Culture Shock were enjoying their shows and meeting their fans and pointed out that everything happens for a reason. Their fan base is steadily increasing and it might just be a strange coincidence but the venue they performed at in Glasgow was called Destiny Church.<\/p>\n
I ask Culture Shock what they are going to bring us next and when I mention collaborations, they laugh. \u201cMaybe we should chill with the collaborations for a while!! We do have a Bollywood one coming up and an interesting hip-hop one. Because of contracts and what\u2019s happened, we have learnt our lesson and we\u2019re not going to say much yet!!\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
They mentioned hip-hop and I couldn\u2019t help but ask whether Bhangra would always be at the forefront of the UK Asian music scene. \u201cIt is difficult for new sounds to break out here and we don\u2019t know why. Bhangra is what works but it might be time for a change and we are going to help change it because we are going to keep pushing the music. People need to push the market. We remember when we were told that Culture Shock wouldn\u2019t work but guess what? It worked and it worked very well.\u201d<\/p>\n
Culture Shock went on to give an excellent performance and it was great to see Surinder Rattan and fellow Canadian Roach Killa in the house, showing their support. The guys certainly have a unique way of fusing RnB, Desi and Dance music with both English and Punjabi vocals to create something really fresh and original. I was glad I went to meet them and let them set the record straight once and for all. This Canadian band has won over a lot of new fans since they came to the UK and I am certainly one of them. As for Jamal Hirani, Culture Shock are letting their lawyers deal with the financials but I really hope we never hear from him again. The music industry will be a lot better off without him.<\/p>\n
By Dal Kaur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Culture Shock and Stranger Family tour got cancelled, wassup?! Dal Dishes The Dirt! We all know the drama surrounding the Culture Shock and Stranger Family tour being cancelled but it was the Canadian band that spoke out first. They announced…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5676,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,12],"tags":[181,393,116,1581,182],"class_list":["post-5760","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured-news","category-news","tag-baba-khan","tag-culture-shock","tag-lomaticc","tag-stranger-family","tag-sunny-brown"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5760","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5760"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5760\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5676"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5760"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5760"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jcsoftwaresolution.com\/desihiphop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5760"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}