Chicago rapper Lupe Fiasco was stopped from performing and removed from the stage during a pre-inauguration concert at Hamilton Live in Washington, D.C. after he went on a lengthy anti-war, anti-Obama tirade. Several concert goers reported that the notoriously outspoken emcee performed an anti-war song for close to 30 minutes, before ranting about not voting for Obama this past November.
He was then asked to perform the next song and refused. That’s when security got involved.
“Lupe Fiasco just got thrown off stage here at the Hamilton Live after he went on an anti-Obama diatribe mid set,” Josh Rogin of Foreign Policy tweeted.
“So Lupe played one anti-war song for 30 min and said he didn’t vote for Obama,” he added. “And eventually was told to move on to the next song…Lupe refused to move to the next song so a team of security guards came on stage and told him to go.”
“Things going terribly wrong at @lupefiasco performance during#SURO. Kicked off stage, bashing obama…” Matt Dornic, senior director of public relations for CNN, tweeted.
“In which Lupe Fiasco gets removed from stage for bashing Obama,” tweeted Kelli Jo, new media training manager at the New Organizing Institute.
The event was presented by StartUp RockOn. Its questionable as to why they would invite Fiasco to perform, considering the rapper has been outspoken in his disapproval of the Obama administration in the past. Hypervocal, co-founder of StartUp RockOn, issued a statement regarding the incident:
“This was not about his opinions. Instead, after a bizarrely repetitive, jarring performance that left the crowd vocally dissatisfied, organizers decided to move on to the next act.”
– stereo williams
