Entertainment of Wednesday, 15 August 2018

Source: asembi.com

Ebony's death: Questions begging for answers

Late Ebony Reigns Late Ebony Reigns

On February 08, 2018, Ghana lost one of its most promising musical talents in the name of Priscilla Agyemang known in showbiz as Ebony Reigns.

Hours after news of her death hit the public, various reports, articles and rumours on the life on Ebony began to trend on the internet with various media platforms telling the sad story of how Ebony Reigns and her two other friends tragically loss their lives in a fatal road accident.

While a lot of media reports have chronicled the short but beautiful life of Ebony and her wonderful music career that span just over two years, many other issues were left unreported and Asembi.com brings them to readers.

Ebony’s Betrayal and Bullet’s revenge

Before Ebony passed away, her last days were marked with series of cautions and subtle jabs from Bullet, CEO of RuffTown Records. At a point, speculations went rife that Ebony had left RuffTown Records to sign for a Nigerian record label.

However, Bullet was struggling to hold on to Ebony and felt betrayed that Ebony not on a single occasion came out to debunk rumours of her joining another label. This made Bullet believe that Ebony wanted out of his label and wasn’t committed to the project he had in store for her.

The situation got to a breaking point when Bullet in a radio interview said she could make and unmake Ebony because he was the one writing most of her songs for her.

In that interview, one could clearly feel the disappointment and revenge in Bullet’s tone of language. One may ask, What was the relationship between Ebony and her management before her tragic accident? Was Ebony already on her own? Was the accident a planned revenge?



Zylofon’s bailout

While Ebony and Bullet were reportedly having issues, multi-million record label, Zylofon Media was also in talks with the young music prodigy without her management’s consent.

The CEO of Zylofon Media, Nana Appiah Mensah said on Instagram the day after Ebony’s death that she was just days away from signing for Zylofon Media pending a $100,000 bailout which Bullet knew nothing of.

Why was Ebony in a rush to leave the label that made her? What problems were she facing? Was it a mere ungratefulness and betrayal?



How come her management didn’t know about her travel?

This is a question that is seriously begging for answers. Ebony, even though was famous and making huge money from her music career, was just 20 years and as such needed to be monitored all the time, her whereabouts should have been taken serious by her management.



A section of the public was alarmed when her manager, Bullet, stated categorically that he didn’t know Ebony had travelled to Sunyani to see her mother. Like seriously? The dead cannot defend herself.

The fact that a whole record label handling a 20-year old female artiste doesn’t know about her travel casts doubts if someone is really telling the truth. Though the cause of her death is accident, the driver coming out alive means everything is possible.

Sexual harassment?

While most people have been talking about Ebony and all her related issues, this is one major topic that has been left untouched. Was Ebony being sexually harassed in the industry?

This important question needed to be asked because of Nana Appiah Mensah’s post on social media in her tribute to the late songstress. Part of his quote reads “We should pay close attention to our female artistes”. The mention of female by Nana Appiah stresses on the fact that the problem faced by Ebony was female-related.



The only problem that could be peculiar to a female is sexual harassment. Nana Appiah Mensah definitely would not have made this statement if he had no idea or knowledge of the problem Ebony was going through in the industry as a female.

Then again, another question that comes to mind is “Did Ebony confide in Nana Appiah Mensah of her predicament and problems in the industry?” if she did, who could be those she mentioned to Nana Appiah Mensah? There are so many questions left unanswered and perhaps only time could answer them.



Who is the driver and who owns the car?

It has been months now since Ebony passed away and up till now, very little is known about the driver of the car. Surprisingly the media has been relatively quiet on finding out more information about the driver and who owns that car.



Indeed since the unfortunate incident took place, nothing has been heard about the driver as all focus seems to be on Ebony, leaving the driver of the vehicle to thank his stars.

While some witnesses claimed that the car crashed because of a heap of sand beside the road, other witnesses argue that the vehicle got involved in the accident because the driver was driving at top speed.



The parents and the management have all gone mute about issues relating to the driver. Since no one seems to know the driver, then who is he? Who hired him to drive Ebony and friends?

This is very strange considering that the driver had not sustain any life threatening injury and was in a position to talk without it having any health complications on him.



The discrepancies in the driver’s narration and eyewitness’ account call for the arrest and questioning of the driver.

The Hypocrisy of the tourism minister

After her death, when tributes were pouring in for the late young musician, the Minister of Culture, Tourism and creative Arts, Mrs. Catherine Afeku also joined the bandwagon and paid her tribute, lavishing her with praises and talking how she was putting Ghana music on the map and will be remembered among the greats, yet when she was appointing tourism ambassadors to help project and sell Ghana to the world, she overlooked her and appointed other celebrities which included Andy Dosty, who doesn’t have much of an influence beyond his radio show.



If really she believed what she said, why didn’t she appoint Ebony as one of the tourism ambassadors who could help project Ghana to the rest of the world? Or is her tribute just one of those usual official statements written for her to recite to the world without herself having any strong conviction in it?



Sonnie Badu’s truncated screenshot chat with Ebony

Upon hearing the news of her death, Sonnie Badu took to Facebook and other social media platforms to pay a glowing tribute to the late Ebony Reigns.

However, what caught the attention of the public was the cropped screenshot of a private chat he had with Ebony, two days before her death. What was so secretive about the chat that Sonnie Badu found it necessary to crop out a portion of it?



Sonnie Badu had defended Ebony from day one when she began her musical career and started receiving public criticism and bashing for her choice of dressing.

From all indication it seems Sonnie Badu has something to hide from Ghanaians. Or was Dr. Badu insulting Ghanaians who were criticizing Ebony?

Or was he encouraging Ebony to continue exposing herself?

Or was he expressing his profound love for her?

Well, Whatever the cropped out section of the chat contained, it still remains a mystery and no one knows what Ebony’s response was until the Gospel music icon releases the full screenshot.



Did Kumchacha Play a role in Ebony’s death?

In the lead up to Ebony’s death, controversial man of God, Prophet Kumchacha was one of her cynic critics, threatening on several occasions to end the young lady’s promising career.

In one of his interviews, he revealed that he had buried both Ebony and Patapaa’s CDs as part of a ritual to end their respective musical careers. A few days after he made the revelations, Patapaa got involved in an accident which according to him made him coughing blood for close to a month.

Patapaa later said he believed Kumchacha had a hand in his accident and it was not coincidental that his accident happened few days after Kumchacha buried his CD.



Patapaa is so confident and sounds spiritually informed that the prophet is responsible for the accident. Few weeks after Patapaa’s accident, Ebony also got involved in an accident but was not so fortunate as Patapaa as she lost her life in the process.

Since then, Kumchacha has gone back on his own words and has come out strongly to deny ever burying Ebony’s CD. According to him, he only buried Patapaa’s CD, contradicting his earlier statement that he has buried the CDs of both artistes.



It is quite clear that Kumchacha is trying very hard to stay away from the raging controversy on Ebony’s accident.

But why is he trying to take his hands off Ebony’s death when no one has directly blamed him for contributing to the demise of the young star?

Why the sudden denial of burying Ebony’s CD? Did Kumchacha’s rituals go bad? We need a third eye to answer.