‘Donate cash Libyans paid you’, 50 Cent told
p2pnet view Crime | Music:- Mega Big Music star 50 Cent earned mega Big Music bucks performing at lavish parties thrown by family members of Libyan murderer Muammar Gaddafi, says Rolling Stone.
But he isn’t alone.
Mariah Carey was paid $1 million to sing for Gaddafi’s son, Muatassim, Libya’s national-security adviser, “at a lavish New Year’s Eve party on the Caribbean island of St. Barts in 2008″, says the story.
He’s seen here at a laugh-in with US secretary of state Hilary Clinton.
“Beyoncé and Usher performed for an undisclosed sum on the island the following year. 50 Cent gave a performance before Muatassim at a 2005 film festival in Venice”, it says, going on, “They’ve done it for tons of artists,” says a music-business source, referring to Muatassim’s parties, which are often jammed with supermodels. “Those guys are all over the world.”
Now, donate the money “to a charity that somehow assists some of the people who have suffered at the hands of that regime”, suggests David T. Viecelli, agent for Arcade Fire.
But “Managers for Usher, 50 Cent and Carey declined comment, and Beyoncé’s management, run by her father, Mathew Knowles, did not return phone calls”, says Rolling Stone, adding >>>
The controversy has echoes of the condemnation that artists – including Rod Stewart and Queen – faced for playing the South African resort Sun City in the Seventies and Eighties despite the country’s apartheid regime; Stewart, Queen and the British band Status Quo donated money to charities after playing Sun City. R.E.M. agent Williams wonders why such prominent artists accepted the gigs in the first place and, like other music-business sources contacted by Rolling Stone, suggests some stars may not have known who they were playing for. “Ninety percent of the time the artist has no clue,” he says. “You hear about these things, it’s generally after the fact. But the majority of my artists, if they knew something was funded by Qaddafi, they would not play it, and morally it would not rest well with them.”
“I don’t think most artists go into [performing at a party like this] with that kind of in-depth focus, [of] how each country is governed and what goes on inside each country,” says Dennis Arfa, agent for Metallica, Billy Joel and Stewart. “Not every artist is a humanitarian. In more cases than not, for people, greed rules.”
Meanwhile, “My name is (…), a Libyan citizen,we have relatives in Tajurah, and we have a confirmed fact that Ghaddafi’s mercenaries are threatening people with death if they come out and talk to reporters or human rights [people]“, says a post on Alive in Libya.
“Please, please, please inform the United Nations, inform the whole world about this massacre that might take place soon. Please, please, raise an alarm. Peace be upon you. Thank you.”
Rolling Stone – Mariah, Beyoncé, Usher Face Calls to Donate Qaddafi Money to Charity, February 28, 2011
Alive in Libya – Inform the whole world about this massacre, February 28, 2011
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
World War III will be a global information war with no division between civilian & military participation ~ Marshall McLuhan
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March 1st, 2011 at 5:56 pm
“Not every artist is a humanitarian. In more cases than not, for people, greed rules.”
Yup, I figured this much. Most artists are full of bull anyway and I can’t see how the sheeple can look up to them. I hate the fact that these artists performed for Gadaafi and his regime of tyranny, yet they and their managers refuse to help the people that are oppressed by said regime. It’s sad, really. And they’re not even that talented, they’re really in it for the money, and if you don’t do something for the love of the art itself and the people who love it instead of doing it for profit, it just doesn’t sound beautiful. It’s sad how some people think priceless things–like human dignity, freedom, true happiness and even peace–should have a price tag on them.
March 2nd, 2011 at 9:24 am
meh.
I don’t like any of them as artists either, but they took a job and were paid by the recognized-by-the-world-leaders of a nation and that doesn’t make them responsible or culpable for the actions of those people. I don’t expect any performer to investigate the background and/or morals of every agent willing to pay them for a performance, and neither does, I suspect, everybody attending those performances.