Posted by By MATTHEW DIKE on
Raggae musician, Raymond King, was recently attacked by hooligans who robbed him of his money and ended up vandalising his car.
Raggae musician, Raymond King, was recently attacked by hooligans who robbed him of his money and ended up vandalising his car.
The Cross River State-born artiste, who had performed in a free street show in Lagos ran into area boys who after extorting money from him, ended up vandalizing his car.
Raymond Gbaji (aka Raymond King) would not have had it rough in the hands of area boys, if he had gone to his residence peacefully after performing at Murphy's Plaza in Victoria Island.
His decision to perform for his teeming fans that fateful day at Ajegunle sold him out as he and his crew members became prey to hooligans.
The free street show, according to King, was organised by his friends to celebrate Nigerian Independence day. He swore that he will never perform in any other show without adequate security network which must include mobile policemen.
King, who is on Globe Disk Music label, will soon have his second album, Born to survive released into market. While explaining his plight, King said that after his performance about 2.30am, he headed home with his crew in his Volkswagen golf car but was trailed by a group of violent people.
Having identified the group as members of the OPC, he first settled them, believing that they would protect him, his crew and vehicle instead they collected his money and vanished in the surging crowd. Then, it was the turn of the area boys who held them hostage in the car for almost an hour.
"After my performance, OPC members came and I settled them. I thought that they would protect me but the boys in the place were so many. They surrounded my car with broken bottles and sticks. I gave them one thousand naira, they said it was not enough. I collected all the money my crew members had on them and gave it to them, they were not satisfied until they broke my car back windscreen, two side screens and snatched our handsets. The broken glasses injured one of my female dancers", King explained.
It would be the second time the artist's car was vandalized. In June, last year, the same Golf car was barely a month old when it was vandalized opposite his residence at Ajegunle. He woke up the next day to see that thieves had removed his car stereo, brain box, jerk and handset that he forgot in the vehicle. King, who lost about a hundred thousand naira in both incidents told Daily Sun that the music business in Nigeria is becoming a threat to popular musicians.
To buttress his point, he alleged that African China was beaten by Policemen at Mile 2 area of Lagos in 2004 for his effrontery to dent the image of the Police in his latest album entitled: Mr President . Raymond King's effort on Vinyl entitled: We Dey Vex contains other tracks such as Forward Ever, Na Who, Choco woman, Bad face etc. his latest album entitled: Born to survive has such tracks as Weego, My Angel, Fa'gbo, Night vigil etc.