City of Winston-Salem cancels hip-hop concert claims artists will bring violence and gang activity

The City of Winston-Salem, North Carolina, has canceled a hip-hop concert after citing that Pooh Shiesty, Moneybag Yo, and Mulato, who were set to perform, would bring violence and gang activity to the city.

Starr Entertainment, the organizer of the July 31st event, said they and the city of Winston-Salem agreed-upon terms of a contract and signed the contract sealing the deal that the “Carolina Summers Music Fest” was a GO at the Winston-Salem Fair Grounds.

Winston-Salem will now probably have to pay big for their breach of the contract after a lawsuit by Starr Entertainment was filed against them.

Court documents say the City and Starr Entertainment signed a contract on June 9, agreeing for the city to host the concert. But on June 21, the attorney for Starr Entertainment received a letter from the City Attorney’s Office informing them that the City was canceling the event.

According to the letter, Winston-Salem Police Department investigated each performer’s background and believes, based on publicly available information, that there exists the chance of violence and gang activity at the city’s property in connection with the concert.

The letter continues by saying that the City of Winston-Salem would not host, nor would it allow a private entity to use City property to host an event if there is a risk of violence to attendees or members of the general public.

READ THE LETTER BELOW:

Starr Entertainment Attorney Jessie Fontenot says facts do not support the city’s decision.

The city’s decision here to cancel the event based on some perceived threat of gang violence is completely unsupported by the facts and completely unsupported by frankly what it is that they were able to pull from their google searches,” says Attorney Jessie Fontenot.

A representative for the entertainment group says that the city found an incident involving MoneybaggYo at an event in his hometown of Memphis, which goes back five years. Since then, the representative says the artist has been in Winston-Salem and has played in the city with no problem.

I think it was notable that the city didn’t do a whole lot of investigation into the other times that this artist was here without problem , but instead wanted to go back to an event from a long time ago and say that apparently he’s not welcome back in the city, Fontenot said.

Carolina Summers Music Fest was the only hip-hop concert scheduled for this year, but there are also four country music concerts, and nine gun shows scheduled for the venue too.

A number of other concerts that are being played at the fairgrounds are 4 country music concerts on the schedule for 2021 – there’s also 9 gun shows at the fairgrounds in 2021 and so this is the only hip-hop show only rap show and it’s the only one that’s being canceled.

The City has agreed to refund all monies paid previously paid to them and will cancel and refund all previously purchased tickets to the event.

Starr Entertainment said they had lost nearly $200,000 in non-refundable deposits for artists and the venue.