While high-profile artists may draw the unconditional adoration of fans, the business world isn’t always so forgiving.
No artist is learning that better these days than R&B artist Akon, who has drawn sharp criticism for performing a sexually explicit dance with an underage teen during a Trinidad concert last month.
Soon after an amateur video of the incident surfaced on the Internet, Verizon Wireless yanked its sponsorship of Gwen Stefani’s “Sweet Escape Tour 07,” in which Akon is her opening act. Gone, too, are the Akon TV spots for the cellular company, as well as his ringtones, music and artwork from Verizon stores and handsets.
Akon offered an apology Wednesday that appeared to deflect part of the blame onto the club that admitted the girl.
“I want to sincerely apologize for the embarrassment and any pain I’ve caused to the young woman who joined me onstage,” Akon said the statement. “We tried to make sure that the club did not admit anyone under 18 in the audience. Somehow that standard was not met.”
The move by Verizon sent a chill through the ranks of touring pop artists and agents, who are scratching their heads over their vulnerability to such penalties.
Analysts and industry executives said corporate sponsors typically study artists’ images before deciding to back them, and they often press for the contracts to include moral clauses that allow the company to back out if an artist commits a crime or other misconduct.
“I think, nowadays, most artists are savvy enough to realize that their actions have consequences,” said William Chipps, a senior editor of the IEG Sponsorship Report. “If you’re working with a sponsor, bad behavior could jeopardize that relationship.”
Others said Verizon should have more fully understood Akon before choosing to promote him. The first two singles from his recent album, “Konvicted,” include sexual references.
Yet others say Akon’s stage show on Stefani’s tour has been relatively tame, and that Verizon acted unfairly and perhaps without considering whether Akon could have known his onstage dance partner was under age.
“This kid is not getting a fair shake,” Jim Guerinot, Stefani’s manager, said Wednesday. “I strongly disagree with their take on it.”
Guerinot added that it was unfair to pull the sponsorship from Stefani’s tour: “How this has anything to do with Gwen Stefani I have no idea.”
Verizon was expected to pay Stefani the cash portion of its sponsorship agreement, said to be around $2 million, but will not continue its advertising and other promotions related to the tour.
“We made a decision, based on what we saw, and in this case, [how] our own customers, who we listen to, were reacting,” James Gerace, a Verizon spokesman, said.
While the company may have appeased some critics, it also may have upset many fans. Akon’s album, “Konvicted,” has sold more than 2.2 million copies and is No. 11 on the Billboard chart. Stefani’s album has sold more than 1.2 million copies, according to Nielsen SoundScan.
When you’ve achieved these artists’ level of success, you usually have a team of people — managers, label execs, publicists and security — whose priority is to protect their artists from such sticky situations.
“You have to really trust the people around you because they can keep you out of trouble as quickly as they can get you in it,” says rapper T.I., who lost his friend and personal assistant last year after a fatal post-concert confrontation.
When you take an artist on the road, explains longtime road manager Anthony Middleton, who has worked with OutKast and Monica, “You have to create this kind of soft bubble around them to protect them from being on the wrong side of a lawsuit — and from themselves.”
Middleton said the Akon situation was “really unpredictable. I mean, what is a 15-year-old doing in a club after midnight? But at the end of the day — be it Akon or anyone — we’re talking about his livelihood, his product, his problem.”
For male performers in particular, women are an ongoing challenge, says security veteran Tim Melchor, who has worked with Bobby Brown, New Edition and LL Cool J.
When impromptu dances with women onstage are part of the show, Melchor says he usually picks them from the audience before the lights go down.
“I prep them for what is going to happen so we’re all on the same page and there is no issue,” he said.
At the end of the day, though, the artist is responsible for his or her own behavior. In Atlanta last week, Akon seemed focused on moving forward.
“We just keep on working,” he said the same day the Verizon news was breaking. “Keep doing our thing, no matter what.”
