Comedian and movie producer Ayo Makun, popularly known as AY Comedian, has opened up about his long-time beef with his colleague Basket Mouth.
AY discussed how Basketmouth used to help him get connected with events when he was just getting started in the comedy business and how a specific event caused the breakup in an interview with media personality Chude Jideonwo.
AY said, "In 2006, (Basketmouth) usually will get gigs like weddings – multiple gigs on a Saturday, maybe 2/3 weddings.
"So what he used to do at that point in time was to attend one, then at a point, leave the venue and catch up in the other venue and then you will need someone else to stand in for you. That was the opportunity I got from him of which I am very appreciative of till date.
"Now, something funny happened. One of the gigs per se, I got his endorsement to go stand in. Usually what we get at that time is 30k and 30k at that time was everything to me. 30,000 would buy me my pack of indomie, recharge cards, fuel for my ‘I better pass my neighbor’ generator and then the opportunity to pay just one or two people to join me to do one or two skits that I can just quickly put out.
"I got this job, and the people weren’t too happy to see me around the venue because they were expecting a Basketmouth to come. Long story short, the guy was later happy after the performance.
"There was an exchange of contacts. Then I left. Two weeks running, I haven’t seen 30k. Because I didn’t see the 30k, and I was starving in Iponri, I decided to ask for 30K and he said this person hasn’t remitted, this person hasn’t paid, you they’re not happy because of this and all of that.
"And then me I was like, ahahn… but this person na, shebi you tell me say you were impressed and happy? Give my oga hin money na, make my oga take settle me and all of that. Me, I don’t care if you give Basket 100k for the job but my 30k is my 30k. It was very funny to now hear from them, knowing that this full payment has been made long before the event. I said ‘O-kay, is that the situation?’.
"So I forwarded this one’s message to this one and vice versa. So they now started fighting each other and all of that. I didn’t do that because I wanted to get at Basketmouth per se. I did that because I was hungry, I was hustling and needed food on the table at the time."
As a result of the interview, Basketmouth's previous discussion of the beef has resurfaced, and people have been talking about it on social media since they found an old clip of him speaking to Ebuka Obi-Uchendu about it.
In the now-viral video, Basketmouth claimed that AY had ruined their relationship by divulging private information to a third party.
Basketmouth said, “The thing is this, friendship for me is everything. I don’t mess around with friendship, I don’t mess around with loyalty. He (AY) came to my space and messed around with loyalty. Though I don’t want to go into details, he said something I personally shared with him with my lawyer Magnus. And Magnus called me.”