Recently the news broke that Runtown and his record label, Ericmanny Entertainment were having contracutal issues. A Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had slammed an injunction against the rising musical artiste Douglas Jack-Agu aka “Runtown“. The injunction prevents him from performing at any event or any form of recording for the time being unless with the approval of his record label, Ericmany Limited.
Ericmany Entertainment label which presently holds the copyright to all Runtown's music is owned by billionaire businessman, Okwudili Umenyiora.
Reports says trouble started when Runtown apparently with the connivance of Bug Media ran by one Bugwu Aneto began to sideline Ericmany and collected money directly for shows without the knowledge of Ericmany. Bug Media is also a party to the court case.
In a new interview with Pulse, Runtown explained the reason for ditching the label.
Apart from the lack of financial support from the label, he said he wasn’t being paid his 35% from the start as stated in the contract.
According to the singer, “We started running, we went for shows and everything, and when I requested for my 35%, problem. I never got any 35% on it. They would always say, ‘We are pushing, we need to put more stuff (money) to push’. The thing went on until 2015, when I was working on my album.”
He then mentioned an incident where Ericmanny’s CEO, Prince Okwudili Umenyiora aka Dilly pulled out a gun on him and physically threatened to ‘f_ck him up’.
Runtown said, “In 2014, I went to London, and the label started calling me and saying that ‘Why didn’t I tell anyone before going to London?’ I didn’t go to London for shows or anything, I went there for vacation. When I got back, I went to Mr Dilly’s house, and he started ranting, and asking ‘Why did I travel?’ I told him that it’s just like travelling to Enugu to see my mum, that it’s just London, just like anywhere, that the contract does not state that I cannot have personal travels.”
“The next thing, He (Dilly) pulled out a gun, and threatened me, and said he was going to f***k me up. I felt scared and confused. I didn’t go to London to do a show and they found out. I went there for my vacation. So the threats kept going on.”
Runtown then confirmed the speculations that Dilly was indeed an ex-convict who went to prison for fraud in the United States and is currently banned from the country.
He made this known while narrating an experience where Dilly cunningly tried to use a ‘Nicki Minaj collaboration’ to get him to sign a contract extension when he was about to shoot his video with DJ Khaled in the US.
He said, “When I was about to drop the video, he called me out of the blues, that he was going to get Nicki Minaj on the album. I accepted, being that a Nicki Minaj will be good on the album. When we were in the US, he kept on calling and asking if we can get across to Minaj. He couldn’t come to the US himself because he is banned by the US Government to return to the country. He has fraud issues.”
“He kept on calling about the Nicki Minaj people that he is ready to play. Then he brought a contract extension for another two years stating that if he pays for the Nicki Minaj deal, then he will need a 2-year extension to recoup his investment. I wasn’t around then, so the management handed the contract to a guy we worked with, and dropped it there. Neither I nor my manager, Aneto-Okeke Bugwu, were around. He called me on the phone threatening me that if I don’t extend the contract, he will kill me, and bury my career, and that he isn’t going to release my album.”
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