Asia’s premier club Zouk Singapore is facing heat following a controversial night over the weekend that saw DJ Fadi from Aly & Fila being ‘forced’ to end his set prematurely.
It was quite the normal night at Zouk – a superstar DJ, the perfect atmosphere, drinks, ladies and quality music until…
Fadi Wassef, one half of the Egyptian trance duo Aly & Fila was performing at Zouk when the owners of the club allegedly told him to end his set prematurely so that a VIP could have a go at the decks instead. Ofcourse this didn’t go down well with the crowd or the DJ, who felt disrespected and lashed out at the club on social media. The club, who recently got new owners, were entertaining a VIP guest that night – the son of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak.
Here’s the story from Fadi’s perspective,
The start of a great night that didn’t end so well:
First of all Zouk Singapore has been one of my favorite clubs in the world, so sad that my last time playing there ended this way. Before you go through my statement plz remember that I can’t blame Zouk in general as there are a lot of great people working there from audio engineer to VJs etc….
I will make it really easy and clear with a list of facts:
1-my contracted set time was 1:30 – 3:30
2-Zouk’s new owner was hosting a “VIP” guest (the Malaysian PM son)
3-I arrived at Zouk at 1:00 am and had a quick interview.
4-Byden who works for Zouk and who takes care of the artists and the night in general told me I can play until the end. I can finish 4:15 and then play an extra 15 minutes more.
5-I went to the DJ booth they introduced me to the the “VIP Guest” and the new owner of Zouk.
6-started my set at 1:40
7-at 3:30 Byden came to me and asked me if I m willing to play back 2 back with that “VIP” guest and my answer was simple:”no way”
8-I continued playing then 15 mins after Byden came to me and he told me that I will have to stop as the new owner wants the “VIP guest” to play.
There was no misunderstanding!!! And instead of apologizing, Zouk keeps posting those lame statements and articles trying to get away with it.
My advice to Zouk:
1-never disrespect artists who helped you build your brand. I m not saying I built their brand, just talking in general. They need to respect their residents and local talents and their international guests.
2-try to fire your new owner
3-fire the PR team
4-admitting your mistake is Brave, but you aren’t.
I did what I did to defend my right as a human being not as a famous DJ or whatever. I was insulted and I reacted. I didn’t expect that it would go viral like that, but this is what I call Karma. I just wanted to let our fans who payed money to see me know the reason why I stopped my set and I didn’t play the 3 hours like every time I have been there.
That’s it!
Fadi Wassef aka Fila from Aly & Fila
Here’s the video of the incident:
Now Zouk has released a statement as you shall see below but we all know whom to believe in this situation.
With regards to last night's incident that happened at the end of Aly and Fila's set, we would like to clarify that it…
Posted by Zouk Singapore on Sunday, March 6, 2016
Following up from our previous announcement pertaining to Aly & Fila's gig at Zouk on Saturday night, Zouk would like to…
Posted by Zouk Singapore on Monday, March 7, 2016
We hope Zouk doesn’t have such issues again in the past. It would be extremely upsetting to have new management come in and ruin a legacy that had been built and maintained over the past few decades.
Your thoughts?
Khushrav’s passion for dance music started early on as he began creating weekly podcast episodes of the latest electronic music across genres and has mixed over 200 episodes over a span of 5years. As a dance music enthusiast, Khushrav still keeps up to date with every week’s releases, contributing to THE’s Spotify playlists.
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