Five artists with roots in New York were cut from the lineup of this weekend’s Rolling Loud hip-hop festival at the request of the New York Police Department, according to a report from The New York Times. The event takes place this weekend at Citi Field in Queens, NY.
The sidelined rappers, 22GZ (Jeffrey Alexander), Casanova (Caswell Senior), Pop Smoke (Bashar Jackson), Sheff G (Michael Williams), and Don Q (Lequincy Anderson) were singled out by the NYPD as being “public safety concerns.” The Police Department noted that each of the five men had “been affiliated with recent acts of violence citywide.”
As the letter from the NYPD to the Rolling Loud festival organizers states, “The above listed performers have been affiliated with recent acts of violence citywide. The New York City Police Department believes if these individuals are allowed to perform, there will be a higher risk of violence.”
A letter from the NYPD to Rolling Loud, acquired by The FADER, asks that the five rappers be removed “due to public safety concerns.” https://t.co/EqzvEhDKEd pic.twitter.com/6iTGriq9FP
— The FADER (@thefader) October 12, 2019
While the Rolling Loud organizers confirmed that they received the NYPD letter and obliged in cutting the five named artists from their lineup, they declined to give further comment to the Times. However, Rolling Loud co-founder Tariq Cherif did comment on the situation on Twitter, noting, “I can’t speak on this much but I want everyone to know that we are still paying all of those artists full booking fees AND sending them offers for the future.”
Thank you my brother. I can’t speak on this much but I want everyone to know that we are still paying all of those artists full booking fees AND sending them offers for future Rolling Loud’s in other cities. https://t.co/HZduF4iXJk
— Tariq (@TariqCherif) October 12, 2019
Several of the canceled artists also spoke out about the move via Instagram. You can read the rappers’ responses to being removed from the Rolling Loud lineup below:
New York-based rappers have long been the target of NYPD scrutiny. As the Times explains, “Rappers in New York have long complained about being targeted by law enforcement at their concerts and elsewhere. Over the years, extensive New York Police Department dossiers on rap acts have been made public, while the department has acknowledged tracking the local music scene for potential criminal activity.”
The move was undoubtedly controversial, though not entirely out-of-the-blue. As the Times notes, “Rolling Loud events have been connected to arrests and violence in the past. Earlier this year in Miami, shootings during the weekend of the festival left two people dead and four wounded … That included an incident in which the artist YoungBoy Never Broke Again (or NBA Youngboy) and his entourage were targeted in a shooting outside of a hotel that left the rapper’s girlfriend and a 5-year-old bystander wounded. A 43-year-old man was killed by crossfire. The rapper Kodak Black was also arrested at the festival on weapons charges.”
Lil Wayne also had issues with the way security was handled with regard to artists and their camps at Rolling Loud in Miami this spring and wound up canceling his headlining performance. As Weezy explained in a Twitter post, “To all my fans who came to see me at Rolling Loud, I’m sorry but I won’t be performing. The Festival Police (Not Rolling Loud) made it mandatory that I had to be policed and checked to get on the stadium grounds. I do not and will not ever settle for being policed to do my job.”
[H/T The New York Times]