Just before Ears To The House returned to the airwaves on Monday, we became aware of this story circulating about Lil Louis apparently pulling out of an appearance at a Brazilian event at pretty short notice. We didn’t think much of it at the time – cancellations do sometimes happen and there often isn’t anything more to it.

However, as the week has gone on, the mystery has deepened. Allow us to explain why. Here’s Lil Louis’s post on Instagram about the situation – we’ve used a screenshot in case it gets deleted, but the original can be found here at the time of writing.

An individual falsely claiming to represent Lil Louis? No valid contract, no plane ticket, no hotel room, no itinerary, no rider completed, and not a single penny paid. This all sounds very serious. But is Lil Louis – real name Marvin Burns – telling us the whole story here?

Paulo Tessuto, a DJ and the founder and CEO of Carlos Capslock Marketplace, has a different take on this – and that’s putting it mildly. Writing on Instagram last Saturday, he said Lil Louis “will not perform due to his breach of contract with Carlos Capslock”. Tessuto also wrote on Lil Louis’s Instagram page that “I’ve signed a contract and made a payment of thousands of dollars to Kamati, who was your booker.”.

And Tim Adams, who has previously worked with the likes of Kaytranada and Erykah Badu, verified this in the same place. And nearly a week on, none of this has been rebutted in any way by Lil Louis.

Ears To The House has contacted Lil Louis ahead of publication to see if he has anything further to say – we haven’t yet received a response…