Pay 2 Play

Peters and Shafer sent their money.

About a month later, they got a packet and chose a list of dates when they'd be available. Then they started talking on the phone with people at 721. They learned that Ludacris had been added to the tour.

"I was in steady contact with them, and they had answers to everything," Shafer recalls. "They would even call me on occasion."

But on February 15, 2006, Shafer and Peters received an e-mail.

"Our staff at 721 Productions have made a unanimous decision to cancel this year's Tour 2006 Season due to a sudden death in our staff in early January 2006," it read. "We lost our Financial Coordinator and Sponsor Correspondent and as a result we will begin reorganizing and changing the structure of our endeavors beginning April 1st 2006."

The letter explained how refunds could be obtained for a period of 180 days and included an e-mail address and a phone number to contact with questions. Shafer and Peters followed the instructions but have yet to receive their money.

"What's kind of embarrassing, too, is that it was money we made from our album sales," Shafer says of their $1,000. He says he can't get anyone from 721 Productions to return his calls.

No one from 721 returned The Pitch's call, either.

Shafer says he and Peters have consulted an entertainment lawyer to decide what to do next. But the company is in New York, Shafer and Peters are in Illinois, and their music keeps them busy.

"This really humbled me," Shafer says. "Nobody should ever pay to play. We don't charge plumbers to fix our water pipes, so why charge artists to play music?"

Until September, Club Kandi was located in a low-profile building between abandoned-looking storefronts advertising Black Cat fireworks in the industrial West Bottoms.

Not every night was poppin' there, but when touring acts came through — Club Kandi booked the Youngbloodz, Slim Thug, E-40 and Trina in 2006 — the place was packed with smoke, bass and people out to see and be seen. Cars with spinning rims and custom paint jobs lined North James Street.

In June 2006, Dem Franchize Boyz, a group from Atlanta that had been signed to Jermaine Dupri's So So Def record label, was scheduled to perform there.

The show would be huge — everyone knew the words to the group's song "Lean Wit It, Rock Wit It" and had its snap-dance moves down as soon as the video hit YouTube.

Vell Williams, a 26-year-old member of AllInOne, was looking for a way to get his group heard. So far, they'd printed water-bottle labels with their logo and rapped for a Mr. Goodcents ad (which still hasn't made it to the airwaves). Getting out in front of 2,000 people at Club Kandi seemed like the promotional break his crew was looking for.

"People have heard us perform before, so we have a reputation of doing good shows — remembering our lyrics and not having our hands on our crotches the whole time," Williams says.

He approached Club Kandi owner Chad Waldrop about opening for Dem Franchize Boyz. Williams says the two of them drew up the standard Club Kandi contract: $500 would pay for All­InOne to perform a few songs before the headliners took the stage. Williams says Waldrop never asked to hear his music.

The show was unforgettable for Williams and his trio — people in the crowd tried to slap their hands and nearly drowned out the music with their approving shouts.

"I was getting pulled off the stage. That was exciting like hell," Williams says. "The amount of respect we got from that — it was real."

Williams vacillates between thinking it was worth $500 and thinking that paying to play is wrong. He acknowledges that club owners who spend thousands of dollars to bring in a national touring act want to recoup their investment. And Williams admits that nobody twisted his arm to pay for the chance to play. But he wishes that club owners would give artists a break. "Charging us to perform — that's not even an even trade," he says. After all, it costs money to record with top-of-the-line equipment, buy beats from producers, print T-shirts and press CDs. "It's hard out here for a rapper. Easy for a pimp."

Waldrop now runs the Hurricane in Westport and has changed Club Kandi to a nonhip-hop format. He says he never kept the $500 fees he charged artists to open at Club Kandi.

"A lot of the promoters are from out of town, so we collect money for the promoters, and when they get in town to do their event, we give them the money when they get here. That's how it goes. The club doesn't get that money. Wish we did."

But Waldrop acknowledges that the Hurricane doesn't charge rock and punk bands to play. "Not at all," he says. "Rock bands ain't got no money. They're barely alive, living day to day, where most of these rappers are funded by drugs."

"He ain't talking about me and All­InOne," Williams counters. "That didn't ever fund my music, and it don't fund my music now. I know my people in my crew. Anything we get, we earned, and we work hard."