Stormzy
Stormzy’s cancelled his gig at Snowbombing festival in Austria after claiming members of his team had been racially profiled.
He was expected to perform on Thursday night, but organisers announced he would no longer be appearing.
In an Instagram story, the rapper claimed his team were targeted while security were looking for a weapon.
Organisers of the gig said they were sad that he had cancelled and that they had acted in accordance to protocol.
The grime artiste told his fans he had to cancel the gig to make a point about racism and racial profiling.
He accused the security team of being aggressive while searching some of his team.
“My manager and all my friends who were at the festival were racially profiled, targeted and aggressively handled because they had reason to believe someone was carrying a weapon.”
He added, “The security targeted them (despite no one fitting the description), were physically aggressive when handling them and there’s been no effort from the festival to actually deal and address the problem.”
The festival confirmed to Radio 1 Newsbeat that his team were not escorted off the premises and Stormzy was not on-site at the time of the incident.
In a statement on its website, the festival said they were alerted to a possible security threat that an individual might have been carrying a weapon.
Organisers explained that “a small number of attendees, including Stormzy’s manager, were escorted to the nearest exit, searched and no weapon was found.”
The festival apologised to Stormzy and his team and added, “We are doing everything we can to understand the full situation and are treating this with the utmost seriousness to ensure this does not happen again.”
People at the festival were only told about the cancellation a few hours before Stormzy was due to perform, via an app that cost attendees £3 to download.
–BBC