Sauti Sol's Bien has narrated how the band was swindled out of their earnings following a show they did in Congo years ago.

Speaking on the Janjaruka series, Bien said the promoter put together a disappointing show in a small venue with a very small audience, to which they still gave their best performance.

“On the day of the show, we went to the venue at like 10 in the night! The venue was a ghost town, there were like 15 people in that place, and the sound was whack," he said.

"We gave them a stadium show still and after the show, he was supposed to give us about $10,000 (Sh 1 million) as a way of finishing off the payment.

"He was like, ‘I’ll finish off in the morning before you guys go to the airport, I need to go to the bank'," Bien recalls.

The following day, they woke up to find their hotel room hadn’t been paid for and it took some back-and-forth phone calls between the hotel manager and their promoter to get the matter settled.

The band were desperate to leave as it was December 24 and they wanted to be home for Christmas.

“So, manze, everyone is so desperate at that point because at that point I don’t even care about the money, I just want to leave. I just want to go,” he says.

They had to decide whether to chase their money with someone who already proved to be flaky or to just abscond and walk away.

At the end of the day, they were forced to make the difficult decision to walk away from the money and catch the bus that crossed the border into Kigali, where they managed to catch their flight back to Nairobi.

Bien advised artistes before performing anywhere to make sure of 90 per cent deposit, 10 per cent negotiable or before performing because once you’re on stage, it’s in God’s hands.