From: Talib Kweli Greene| Sent: Thursday, January 28, 2016 9:17 AM To: Ron Peleg; n.chan@utah.edu; Bob Davis; Neelam Chand Subject: Re: FW: Mr. Kwell’s Visit adding N Chand On Thu, Jan 28, 2016 at 8:06 AM, Talib Kweli Greene| ‘This is total and utter bullshit, [ am adding to this email chain N. Chan who ran the and Bob Davis from APB. 1. "There were several items Kweli failed to fuifil.” This is a lie. A straight lie. Even though these asks were completely outlandish and ridiculous, | fulfilled each and every single one Normally I get paid to come and speak for a half hour and answer questions for a half hour. Period, Sometimes, [ am asked to attend a dinner and a reception on top of the speaking, Never once in the history of speaking engagements have I flown io the night before, thus killing my opportunity to work somewhere else, attended a reception, then woke up and essentially made myself available for a full work day of events from 9-3pm. That is ALOT more than what I normally do for this amount of money. Yet I did it, And now they gonna fie on me? Shamefil. 2. The night before I got to Utah, | worked until midnight. | got up and caught the only flight that would get me to Utah for the night before. [ landed, was picked up by N. Chan, driven to my hotel. I dropped off my bags, headed straight to the reception. N. Chan asked me if 1 wanted to make some remarks but also MADE IT CLEAR that | did not have to if | didn't ‘want to, It was absolutely framed as a suggestion. Being that I was being paid to deliver a speech and had flown all day, I chose to save my remarks for my speech. | was told by N. ‘Chan that would be fine. Upon arriving at the reception, | met the president and his family. Everyone was very nice and happy to meet me. The president repeated what N Chan said to me, that I could make remarks if | wanted to, but I was not obligated to. I chose not to. I did take 5-10 minutes to collect myself during the reception, because I spent the whole day traveling, but then I came back upstairs. We listened to the president speak for about $ minutes, and I shook hands and took pictures with EVERY PERSON IN THAT ROOM. After being there for about a half hour to 45 minutes, N. Chan came to me and ASKED ME IF LWAS READY TO LEAVE. So I said yes. To say that I expressed that I refused to speak at this event or that it was framed as ANYTHING BUT A SUGGESTION is a LIE. To suggest that | only made myself available or that I was the one who decided to leave early when N Chan is the one who presented as an option, is incredibly unfair and dishonest. This is crazy that these people would LIE like this. How dare they!!! And according to the contract, it says 5 minutes of informal remarks are requested by speaker. A request is hardly an obligation. But even if it was an obligation, it should have been presented as an obligation in the moment as opposed to a suggestion. 3. Itis correct that when I found out they wanted a 10 minute spoken word that I said no, heres why. 1, am not a spoken word artist. I'm a rapper. If they don't understand the ifference in skill set, how is that my fault? Why would they ask me to do a spoken wordwhen thats not what | do? I don't write nor do I record spoken word pieces, so didn't have 8 spoken word piece prepared to do. When I made this plain to N Chan, she said she understood and said it would be fine. Now, a week later after I'm not paid, all of a sudden its not ok? Well why was it ok when I was there? Thats bullshit. Now if we are attempting +10 only stick to what the contract says, then I deserve DOUBLE the money because | spoke for TWICE as long as ] was contractually obligated to and I answered questions for TWICE, as long as | was contractually obligated to. So did I do @ 10 minute spoken word? No. But | spoke twice as fong and answered questions for twice as long, which is more than a fa trade off. Why was that not mentioned in this letter? 3. To suggest that anyone was embarrassed or disappointed, is bullshit. All that anyone said to me the whole day, students and faculty alike, was how much they enjoyed my speech and how happy they were to have me there. I began my half hour speech at noon and did not finish until 1, a full hour. | then answered questions for another full hour, till 2pm. The comments on social media reflect how much the students enjoyed the speech and discussion. In fact, many of these comments were RTed by both APBSpeakers twitter account as well as University of Utah twitter account, so how could anyone suggests that there was any embarrassment or disappointment? ‘This is a lie. the facts and the evidence prove otherwise. Here is just a sample of the many positive comments I received- @Chelscasaus "standing ovation for Talib Kweli introduction” @MalariHuesser "a strong introduction given welcoming Kweli along with a strong start of his speech highlighting black culture. Inspired.” @Chelscasaus "an overflowing crowd enthralled in Kwelis take on racism, slavery and black history" @samuelsski27 “thru twitter and gofundme Kweli raised 100K for Ferguson" @lordan_Senteno "Kweli talks about the creation of Black Lives Matter and what it stands for as a tool to obtain equality.” @Cory_Patel3 "TalibKweli speaks of the blue wall of silence used in the shooting of Mike Brown" @Cory_Patel3 "kweli accredits Harry Belafonte as the most connective artist in the fight against racism" @Cory_Patel3 "standing ovation tor Talib Kweli” @Malariheusser "Talib Kweli speaks on Fergusons uprising- real stories from activists unlike the blurry misguided events shown on tv" @samuelsski27 "this is the millennials moment and they are se keynote to standing ovation.” @Cory_Patel3 "wonderful speech by Talib Kweli @lordan_Senteno "this was an epic experience, Thank you Talib Kweli for coming out and sharing with us." @Cory_Patel3 "UoU student Stephanie Hansen says Talib Kweli was really thought provoking" @chelscasaus "leaving the student Union extremely inspired from an amazing speech thank you Talib Kweli" git. Talib Kweli ends And these are only twitter comments. If | showed you the vast amount of positive Facebook ‘comments you will truly be embarrassed for trying to lie on me, Shame on y'all. Where is, the embarrassment in these tweets? Where is the disappointment? If the school was, embarrassed why is the exact opposite reflected on social media, even from the schools own account?@UUuah "Big thanks to Talib Kweli for an impactful and thought provoking keynote!” If the schoo! was embarrassed, why was I thanked for an "impactful and thought provoking keynote" from the schools account? After flying in the night before, attending the reception and shaking hands and taking pictures with everyone there, having to be up for a speaking event at the school at 9am the next day, speaking for a full hour, answering questions for a full hour, I was ushered into a room for a contractually obligated lunch, Not even a bathroom break, just speak to MORE people even though you just spoke for two hours. | am a human being not an animal. Upon arriving in the room, I noticed that the people in the room were the SAME EXAC PEOPLE that were at the reception the night before AND at the breakfast that morning. I had already met and took pictures with most of them. So being that I had just spoke for two hours and STILL had a workshop to do, | puled N Chan to the side and asked her if it was, necessary for me to be at this lunch. I explained I was human and that the strain on my voice was real. [ explained that the time they asked me to commit to meeting the same people over and over again was far and above the norm for speaking at u school and frankly, didn’t make sense. N Chan AGREED with me. She said that she could tell that this was ail too much, and suggested that I go to the green room and collect my thoughts for the workshop. On her suggestion, I went to the green room, chilled for a few minutes, Then | went an sat for a workshop with about 20-25 students, and answered even MORE que: So heres where I stand. This school is attempting to lie on me as to not pay me. The contract states that I get paid day of. I fulfilled what I was contractually obligated to do, and if there were any issues, they should have been addressed to me while I was at the school, not a week later with this bullshit letter. I expect to get paid in full. Today. Or I am going public with everything in this email. | will personally tag every student who tweeted that day, post on my FB and Twitter about how University of Utah is trying to rip me off. Fuck around if you want. This will not be pretty for the school, Trust me, if | have to get the students involved, you won't like it. In fact, am sending a tweet about it now. Keep playing with my money