- Since 2010, Burna Boy has been said to have harboured a grudge against Mr 2Kay, culminating in a vicious attack on the singer that nearly took his life.
New information obtained exclusively by NET reveals why the robbery attack on David Abinye Jumbo– known better by his moniker Mr 2Kay was the outcome of several years of resentment harboured by Burna Boy which culminated in the event of 23rd October that left 2kay bruised and battered.
A close associate of Mr 2Kay’s spoke to us at length and shed light on the reasons why Burna Boy is responsible for the vicious attack. The source pleaded for anonymity as the case was now in court.
In the early hours of Monday 23rd November, David Abinye Jumbo– known better by his moniker Mr 2Kay– was relaxing in his seventh-floor room at Eko Hotel after his performance at 2Baba’s concert BuckwyldnBreathless. A light knock sounded on the door and he enquired who it was. ‘Room service’ the voice said. He decided to inch the door open a little bit and that was the worst decision of his life. The four individuals that crashed the room overpowered him and beat him to a pulp, after which he was tied up while they left with his phones and jewellery. Photos of him that surfaced online afterwards tell the story of the robbery.
A few days later, the police announced that four suspects had been apprehended and made a shocking claim: that the robbery was sponsored by fellow artiste Burna Boy. According to the Commissioner of Police Edgar Imohimi, the suspects revealed that they were paid by Burna Boy for the act. He went on to announce that Burna Boy was on the run and was wanted by the police.
Of course, the artiste denied and his management issued a statement to the effect that Burna Boy had been to the police to clear his name and was now looking forward to holding his end of the year concert in December. Again the police reacted to this claim and insisted that it was not true, doubling down on the fact that he was indeed on the run and only his father had come to plead.
But in a twist of events, when the three apprehended suspects were arraigned at the Ikeja High Court; Burna Boy and his manager Joel Kantiock both of whom had hitherto been named as co-suspects, were excluded from the charge note. This turn of events caught the victim by surprise and afraid that it was being swept under the rug- which was why NET was approached with this information. This is the first time the full story of the remote and immediate cause of the fateful night is being told.
The Beginning of The ‘Beef’
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| Mr.2Kay |
In 2010 Mr 2Kay was a local Port Harcourt boy who got signed to Grafton Records, an imprint of Grafton Entertainment owned by Tonye Ibiama; a UK returnee with interests in the music business. Although the River State capital was as cosmopolitan as any comparable city, music took a backstage to the ‘oyel’ business it was known for. Mr 2Kay began to garner so buzz when he started out. Sure he was not the most popular artiste to come out of that region- Duncan Mighty held sway- his buzz was considerable enough for people to know who he was. As a matter of fact, his first single Run This Town attracted Duncan Mighty who approached him for a remix of the song.
About this time, another act was gathering momentum in and around PH. Burna Boy was troubled teen whose precociousness had landed him back in Nigeria after getting into trouble in London. He too was trying to get his music going on and liked the Run This Townsingle. He got in touch with Mr 2Kay and made his own version of the song in Grafton Records studio. However, the song didn’t come out well and was dumped binned by Ibiama. It was never released and Burna didn’t like it. He was convinced that with his pedigree (his grandfather Benson Idonije had worked with the iconic Fela back in the days.) He took it as a deliberate, personal snub and never forgot.
Interestingly, less than a year later he had the good fortune of hitting the big leagues with his second single, Like To Party. By the end of 2012, he was a household name in Nigeria. Mr 2Kay also had moved to Lagos and was excited to see his old acquaintance shining. He reached out to Burna and said ‘Bro, good to see you o! Let’s run things…Let’s show these Lagos people what they’ve been missing. If there’s anything we can do together, let’s get it started….’
As you may have guessed, Burna Boy wasn’t interested. Even at Mr 2Kay’s first ever outing at Industry Nite, he was on the bill to perform but never showed up. On the flip side, when Burna headlined the show, 2Kay was there to support but was given the cold shoulder. His calls to Burna were unreturned and even on a number of shows when both of them were listed to perform, Burna Boy avoided 2Kay as much as he could. In time, whatever shred of friendship they may have had completely severed itself as they never spoke one-on-one.
Payback in 2017
By now Burna Boy had become very successful; arguably one of the top ten most recognizable names in Nigerian entertainment- as 2Kay, perhaps not at that level yet. Burna has fully embraced his enfant terrible persona that many of his fans seem to genuinely love. So it wasn’t much of a surprise when one day he tweeted his disgust for Nigerian pastors.
The way I genuinely dislike Pastors, preachers e.t.c. I might have to knock 1 of dem d Fuck out 1 of these days. I know God will be happy.— Burna Boy (@burnaboy) October 9, 2017
2Kay on his part was preparing for his performance at BuckwyldnBreathless. While rehearsing at Koga Studios, he was interviewed by HipTV and asked for his take on the matter. His reply was that Burna had no right to speak about ‘men of God’ like that. In his words, ‘It was wrong to say that about men of God…it’s a no from me… You can’t go and say that about native doctors so why are you saying that about pastors…’ And then he added at the end that he didn’t know if he was high when he tweeted that.
Per our source, even 2Kay label boss Ibiama didn’t like that he added that. Going by the history of the cold war between the two of them, he felt it was unnecessary for his artiste to make what would seem like disparaging statements about Burna.
But the turn of events that followed caught even him by surprise: Burna sent a DM to the effect that Mr 2Kay should be that bold whenever they ran into each other. When that one tried to explain that he didn’t mean to diss him, his reply was curt: ‘Just have that same energy nigga’.
That was on the 13th of October. Ten days later, Mr 2Kay was left fighting for his life.
Per our source, even 2Kay label boss Ibiama didn’t like that he added that. Going by the history of the cold war between the two of them, he felt it was unnecessary for his artiste to make what would seem like disparaging statements about Burna.
But the turn of events that followed caught even him by surprise: Burna sent a DM to the effect that Mr 2Kay should be that bold whenever they ran into each other. When that one tried to explain that he didn’t mean to diss him, his reply was curt: ‘Just have that same energy nigga’.
That was on the 13th of October. Ten days later, Mr 2Kay was left fighting for his life.
More than mere coincidence
After that DM, 2Kay and his manager reached out to a mutual friend, Timaya, in a bid to finally squash this longstanding beef. Burna was said to have outrightly refused to have any such meeting.
Meanwhile, there was yet another person whose path had intersected both Mr 2Kay and Burna Boy. When Grafton Entertainment was making inroads into Lagos, they engaged the services of a PR firm, Buki HQ. A certain Joel Kantiock handled 2Kay’s account at the time. Incidentally, that same person was now Burna’s road manager. Apparently, he too had heard about the festering beef and called 2Kay’s road manager, saying he wanted to them to see to clear up the dispute.
When Mr 2Kay moved into Eko Hotel on the evening of October 22nd, his road manager Samuel Michaels who in turn took him up to 2Kay’s room.
According to our source, once the ‘robbers’ burst into the room, they immediately started to beat him up. For a while, 2Kay struggled with three of them before one of them brought out a gun and threatened to shoot him there and then. It was at this point that they tied him up and wrapped him in a blanket. They proceeded to roll him up and opened the balcony door and proceeded to toss him down. 2Kay was said to have screamed and wept and begged for his life. One of them, who turned out to be the leader of the group then told the others not to throw him down but said to him, ‘You need to watch your mouth. It’s what you said that is dealing with you right now…’ Then they left with his phones and other valuables, ostensibly to show Burna Boy that they carried out the job as instructed.
Six weeks later, he’s reportedly still in psychological therapy to help him deal with the trauma of being a hair’s breath away from a terrible death.
Why all roads lead to Burna Boy
It took a consistent push by 2Kay’s label for the police to not give up the investigation.Tonye Ibiama put pressure on Eko Hotel (a 500 million naira lawsuit is nothing to sneer at) who in turn pressured the police until they tracked the boys who carried out the operation.
In their first statement, the three suspects named Katiock and Burna Boy as their sponsors who gave them N100,000 to ‘deal with Mr 2Kay’. Shortly after, Kantiock was arrested and paraded with the suspects while the Police Commissioner declared Burna Boy himself wanted.
Strangely enough, as soon as the news broke; Burna Boy who had snubbed Grafton Entertainment all these years, suddenly reached out to them by phone, saying that he was sorry that happened to his ‘brother’ but that he had nothing to do with it.
But the most bewildering is that when the case was heard in court, the prosecution (ie the police) left off Burna Boy and Joel Kantiock on the charge note. Our source believes- along with Grafton- that the police may have been bribed to sweep the matter under the rug and let the actual attackers take the fall for Burna’s crime.
We reached out to his management for their take on this matter but was not replied to. We also contacted Buki HQ which handles Burna Boy’s media relations. The officer that spoke to us claimed not to know anything about this recent development and backstory. ‘This is a strange one. I certainly know nothing about this one’, we were told.
On their part, the police say only the commissioner can speak on the matter.
A Grafton official who confirmed all of the above told us they are afraid of the miscarriage of justice in this matter. ‘We just want the police to tell us why after they had bragged about their investigation and had declared that Burna Boy had a case to answer; why then did his name disappear from the case notes? We want justice…that’s all we want, justice…
#EXCLUSIVE: Why BurnaBoy Sent Robbers After Mr. 2Kay Because Of Their 7yrs Old Beef.
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