John Cole lashes out at Paul Martin

Award winning choreographer and dancer John Cole and upcoming artist Paul Martin's work relationship is in limbo, after the latter allegedly breached an agreement that barred him from using video clips with the former’s dance routines to create a full-length music video.

John Cole

In an interview with The ZimTainment, Cole said that they had only agreed to do short clips, but was surprised when Martin decided to do a full-length video, which he had not paid for, behind the choreographer’s back.

“Since he is an upcoming artist, we had agreed to do a ‘three-minute snippet’ video, but suddenly he started talking of a full length video, which we had not agreed on and he had not paid for,” he said.

Cole said Martin was refusing to take down the footage, which he posted on YouTube, after he had requested him to do so.

Paul Martin

“Martin is refusing to take down the video and I feel he is making use of my intellectual property. He is going to make money out of this video and I am not going to get anything from it,” he said.

Although Martin had offered to pay more for the video, Cole said the issue was now beyond repair because Martin had insulted him.

“I do not want his money anymore, not after he insulted me,” he said, adding that the upstart was now trying to turn his dancers against him.

Martin, however, denied the claims saying he had agreed to take down the footage although he never used any of Cole’s dances.

He accused Cole of trying to damage his reputation over an undisclosed vendetta.

“He asked me to remove the footage that had his dancers on it and I did. I think he is trying to tarnish my image because of a grudge he has with me from the past, but which I am not even aware of,” Martin said.

Cole accused artists of taking dancers for granted because they felt they did not add value to their music.

“I have been choreographing for a number of artists. This is not my first time coming across such people and I realise that these artistes don’t take dancers seriously. They think they are more important than us,” he said.