The Kora Awards, which many has tagged “Africa’s Grammys”, have been postponed until Monday because Chris Brown, the US rapper headlining the event, missed his flight, organizers said.Brown “will not arrive until Sunday at 5:00 am (0500 GMT),” the event’s communication director Konnie Toure told AFP on Saturday.The award extravaganza, which originated in South Africa in 1994, was to have been held Saturday in Ivory Coast’s economic capital Abidjan.
Past editions have been attended by
South African anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela and the late “King of Pop” Michael Jackson.
Brown, known as much for his virtuoso dance steps as for his tumultuous relationship with singer Rihanna, whom he has admitted assaulting, will still arrive in time to perform as scheduled at a concert “for peace in Africa” at Abidjan’s main sport stadium on Sunday, Toure said.
African artists including the Nigerian duo P-Square, winner of the last top Kora prize in Ouagadougou in 2010, will also take part.
For Ivory Coast, which is still recovering from four months of post-election violence that ended in April 2011 after claiming some 3,000 lives, the event signals a return to normalcy.
