The highly- anticipated 10-day Macufe Festival made its triumphant return to the Free State this month but it was not without drama.
The revitalised festival, which is now called the Cultural Urban Festival Africa (CUFA), took place in Bloemfontein from October 3 to 13.
It featured top local performers such as Scorpion Kings, Zonke, Lira, DJ Zinhle, Felo Te Lee, Nkosazana Daughter, Makhadzi and Oscar Mbo among many others.
But Mbo and Makhadzi have since been trending on X for an incident that left a bad taste in fans mouths.
According to a viral video, Mbo stated that Makhadzi “threw him under the bus”.
It all started when Makhadzi arrived late for her performance at the festival.
Mbo allegedly offered Makhadzi some of his time on stage but Makhadzi went over leaving Mbo no choice but to end her set.
Not knowing the finer details, fans got upset with Mbo thinking that he kicked Makhadzi off stage, just as he did with Kharishma at the Blouberg Spring Annual Festival on Saturday, September 28.
Mbo has received backlash from social media since the incident occurred.
He finally took to social media to share a video in which he phoned Makhadzi to clear his name.
In the video, Mbo relayed the story to Makhadzi, saying that he is being accused of sabotaging her performance.
“They (stage managers) asked me if I can perform after you, I told them that it’s okay ... if she is going to perform on my time, I am going to share the time, because I’m suppose to perform now ... they said she will do 20 (minutes) and I will do 20 (minutes), that was fine,” said Mbo.
He continued to say that the person at fault was the event organisers and that Makhadzi and he agreed that the event organisers should issue a statement but that they also speak up about the incident in their personal capacity.
Mbo said that he felt that his brand was being attacked.
“While you are quite Makhadzi, from 4am to 3pm now, I am getting sworn at from people ... I have to say something as well ... I am not disrespecting you or disregarding you ...
“You are a brand, you are doing your work, I am a brand, I’m doing my work, can you and I be on the same page and attack the right people,” he said.
Makhadzi confirmed that Mbo and her did make their own agreement on how to move forward in addressing the incident.
She said: “The reason why I didn’t come back to you or post whatever we agreed on is because I wanted us to share the same thing from the promoter. My management spoke to them to tell them to write a statement.”
Mbo told Makhadzi that she did not share this information with him and that he felt that he was thrown under the bus.
“You should have told me for courtesy, because we had a private conversation ... I feel that by you not doing anything, by you not saying anything, you put me under the bus, because people have this idea that I did this to you ...
“I understand that you spoke to the promoter but you should have let me know.”
Makhadzi defended herself by shifting blame to the promoter.
“Whatever happened, happened. It does not mean that there is bad blood between us. They were the ones who said that they going to communicate with your team about putting out a statement, so I thought maybe you knew about it,” said Makhadzi.
Makhadzi laughed it off and did not offer Mbo the apology he was clearly looking for.
Oscar Mbo addresses backlash over Makhadzi incident at Macufe Festival
— MDN NEWS (@MDNnewss) October 13, 2024
Oscar Mbo has come forward to share his perspective on the backlash he faced after being accused of sabotaging Makhadzi's performance at the Macufe festival in Bloemfontein.
Allegations surfaced that Mbo… pic.twitter.com/kKNW3gqZna