Nicki Minaj Had A No-Show in Shanghai This Weekend

By That's, November 19, 2018

In bizarre news this weekend, Nicki Minaj flew to Shanghai to take part in what she believed was the Djakarta Warehouse Project (DWP) Festival.

Minaj was due to perform on Sunday, November 18, but never took to the stage, much to the disappointment of her Chinese fans, some of whom waited around for the singer for two hours according to this post on Instagram:

201811/Screen-Shot-2018-11-19-at-3_10_01-PM.png
Screengrab via camilla_shi2002/Instagram

Later, however, a video of the star apologizing to her fans was posted on Weibo. She said "to my real fans in Shanghai... I will be back next time... with a better partner."

DWP China did not take that lying down and published their own retort in which they said: "After the organizer actively communicated with her for two hours, Minaj still refused to come on stage to perform, even though she had no justifiable reasons. Later on, her manager went onto the stage and, with an extreme perfunctory attitude, unilaterally declared for the show to end ahead of schedule!"

You can see video of her manager telling the crowd that Nicki could not play because of issues with the sound:

Organizers took to the stage to ask punters to make noise for Nicki, in the hopes that the star would appear.

And not to dig the knife in any deeper for DWP China, but that stage looks nothing like the original promotional pictures the organizers used to coax fans to buy tickets, something that netizens quickly picked up.

Image via @王毛阿猫/Weibo

Just days prior to the festival, Minaj's fellow headliner DJ Snake, along with DVBBS, were pulled from the bill for Saturday, November 17. According to a statement on Weibo, it was stated in simple terms by DWP China: "We are sorry to annouce that our beloved DJ Snake and DVBBS will not appear in the show due to certain special reasons." Organizers of the Shanghai event went on to offer to refund tickets for Saturday ticketholders, while also offering to swap those tickets for Sunday passes.

They are now also offering refunds after the Nicki Minaj fiasco.

Furthermore, the lead-up to the event was marred by rumors regarding the authenticity of DWP China's operation. Days before the event an image surfaced online, purportedly a screengrab of a statement from DWP's Instagram Stories, claiming that the music festival is an "unauthorized use of DWP trademark" and that "DWP as a brand has no association with the event.”

In reaction to that, the organizers of the Shanghai event posted their own statement on Weibo, stamped with a power of attorney, which stated that it was in fact authorized by Ismaya, organizers of the Indonesian music festival. Again, Ismaya had not posted any promotional material to their official account about the Shanghai event.

Since then, a domain called DWPChina.com uploaded a statement to their website, saying that the Shanghai event had nothing to do with them and that it was an unauthorized use of the DWP trademark. It is unclear who actually owns this domain, though it is hosted by an Indonesian Internet service provider.

That's have reached out to the DWP team for further clarification, but have yet to receive a reply.

Not everyone was a no-show. 'Despacito' singer Luis Fonsi posted plenty of photos from Shanghai on his Instagram this weekend. Meanwhile, Yultron snapped a video of Minaj's tents on his Instagram Stories and both Vinai and WhyBeatz posted photos of the main stage during their sets. Special guest Kun also performed on Saturday night.