‘If I’m fake I ain’t notice, cause my money ain’t.’ – Nicki Minaj

On with the biohazard suit, and into the sewerage we go.

As South Africa’s greatest ever act of scatological forensics enters its second week, it should come as no surprise that the activities of Oakbay Investments, the Gupta family’s primary vehicle of local self-enrichment, play a starring role in many of the e-mails and documents oozing their way into South Africa’s consciousness. Oakbay has always been pitched as an empowerment vehicle, with former CEO Nazeem Howa punting the “5,000 jobs” created by their subsidiaries as essential to the country’s economic viability. It is now abundantly clear that those jobs came at an immense cost – it would have been cheaper to offer each Oakbay employee a Dubai manse, and parked a business jet in the double garage as a sweetener.

But the matter immediately at hand is the 2015 SATYs, TNA/ANN7’s1 version of a North Korean televised execution, set for 17 October, 2015. The awards show was billed as a big-brand special, the “must see” event of the year. At first, the decision was to go with a ticketed event, which would presumably have recouped some of the expenditure. But because international superstars don’t care about your expenditure, that was a contractual non-starter. Instead, invitations were extended only to “the creme of the South African society”. (Man of the people, Nazeem Howa.) Sponsors were courted, including R200,000 from telecoms company Blue Label, whose former COO Mark Pamensky was a non-executive director at Oakbay Resources and Energy, and sat on Eskom’s board for no reason that anyone could fathom.

Socialites with long memories will recall that pop sensation Jason Derulo was secured to perform – his base fee, according to invoices uncovered in the leaked files, was $250,000. But the big name was superstar chanteuse and The Voice judge, Christina Aguilera. In an e-mail dated 23 June, 2015, Aguilera’s representatives were sent a signed offer for $1.1-million, with a $200,000 airfare buyout, not including “first class accommodation”, “first class ground transportation”, and one of those insane superstar riders, all of which amounted to at least R16-million – a staggering amount for a television station with a viewership of roughly three.

But international stars are experts at fleecing the hyper-rich friends of Third World dictators, and so it was with Aguilera’s representatives and the hapless Howa. As noted, the SATYs were originally supposed to be a ticketed event, but there were no provisions for this in either Derulo or Aguilera’s contract. There was the usual backing and forthing, but Aguilera’s involvement was terminated following an e-mailed apology from the Creative Artists Agency (CAA), dated 17 September, 2015, citing Aguilera’s commitments to The Voice, who held first dibs on her schedule.

Oops.

This was a terrible mess, but there was nothing controversial here, especially if you’re one of those people who considers R16-million a perfectly acceptable price to pay for hearing “dirrrty” and three other songs performed live at the Ticket Pro Dome, over the course of an event designed to perpetuate the long-term existence of a non-viable, taxpayer-funded, high-school-level television channel.

Anyway, what to do? Who was going to join Jason Derulo to entertain Jacob Zuma, his ex-wife, several of his current wives, his son Duduzane, and the whole Gupta political pantheon? The agent helpfully suggested Lionel Richie. He then offered Ke$ha. He pitched Ne-Yo. He tried to foist fucking Jamiroquai.

But how about rap/pop provocateur Nicki Minaj?

This made perfect sense – “sense” being an entirely relative term in this case. Howa & Co. had in their possession  a cold $1.3-million to dispense to some incredibly rich American entertainer, and Minaj was certainly an edgier choice than Aguilera. The creme would cream themselves! To the negotiating table Howa went.

But before we get to the nitty-gritty, cursory perusals of the #GuptaLeaks present some early conclusions, the first of which is that it is both cheap and easy to buy South African politicians. The second is that the Guptas and their minions are not criminal geniuses, largely because they don’t have to be. I’ve been served by lay weed dealers who possess more business acumen than this crew. The caveat, of course, is that their cash came free. To paraphrase Ms. Minaj, they may be fake, but their money ain’t. 

This is all pertinent, by the way, to the negotiations that were undertaken to secure Ms. Minaj’s services. The first party was New York-based NVE, “an event marketing agency that specialises in producing brand experiences.” The second was with Minaj’s representatives, the powerhouse International Creative Management. Things went south very quickly. ANN7 and TNA wanted Minaj to appear at one of their infamous breakfast shindigs in order to maximise the marketing potential for what was meant to be a $1-million outlay. But Howa and his team got their lines crossed, and negotiated directly with ICM, offering $1.1-million – $100,000 more than what NVE was asking. Throwing on NVE’s commission brought the fee to $1.2-million.

These e-mails are a lesson in how to negotiate when the money comes easy.

The Americans got pissy very quickly. Things descended into an e-mailed bunfight with the NVE rep, who complained on 8 October, nine days before the SATYs were to blow South Africa’s minds:

“We never thought you would pull out and we acted on your behalf to get this event confirmed. If this was a possibility, we would not have done the call with Nicki yesterday, begging her to stay on board. If you do not move forward with us, everyone will be hurt deeply. Do you understand how this is working?”

Offering a discount for not including the breakfast, the fee was now $1-million, plus NVE’s commission. But by the weekend, no contract had been forthcoming, and even the brains at the TNA/ANN7 executive committee appeared to agree that a million Benjamins for a week’s-worth of marketing brouhaha was too steep a price. And so Howa withdrew the offer just before noon on the 9th.

What’s obvious is that TNA/ANN7 had nothing close to the machinery to deal with a star of Aguilera or Minaj’s wattage, even if they did have the cash available. The SATYs were budgeted like an oil sheikh’s birthday party, and this little glimpse into the Oakbay toilet bowl reminds us that the Guptas and their associates understood razzmatazz buys influence, influence buys more razzmatazz, which in turn buys more… you get the picture. Straight up, old-school influence peddling – nothing illegal about it, but thoroughly distasteful in its minutiae, especially in a country where most people… again, you get the picture. Corporate shitbaggery, white, brown or black, is never wholesome in its granular details.

And while all of this was going, the UK PR firm Bell Pottinger was writing briefs for Oakbay, pitching them “radical economic transformation” as a weapon in the infotainment war against White Monopoly Capital. As it happened, Rap Monopoly Capital was very nearly a beneficiary of the Guptas’ largesse.

And the SATYs? Well, they didn’t happen in 2016. According the the website, “The postponement is due to unforeseen regulatory circumstances that have materially impacted on logistics for the event.”

The creme of South African society will just have to be whipped into a branded froth elsewhere. After all, there’s always someone, somewhere, trying to buy their way in. A couple bottles of champagne, a VIP table, a lifetime award for services rendered (stand up, Madame Dlamini-Zuma), and lo! – you’ve bought friends for life. But what do the Guptas care? As Minaj would put it, “Tell em to go ‘head n gossip as long as your house is the size of my closet”. DM

Photo: US singer Nicki Minaj arrives for the MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles, California, USA, 06 September 2012, EPA/PAUL BUCK

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