Roddy Ricch to donate pay from Astroworld to families of victims

Rapper Roddy Ricch has announced that he will donate his compensation for his performance at Astroworld to the families of those who died at the festival.

Ricch was one of several performers in the Travis Scott festival, including SZA, Yves Tumor, Lil Baby, Toro Y Moi. After the overwhelmed crowd surged the stage at in Houston, Texas, on Friday, November 5th, eight people died with many more being hospitalised with injuries.

After the tragic event, Ricch revealed in an Instagram Story his intention to do his part for the victims. “Please have the families of those who we lost yesterday reach out to @shawnholiday,” Ricch wrote. “I’ll be donating my net compensation to the families of this incident.” He also included the hashtag #Pray4Houston at the end of his message.

As per Variety, the person Ricch asks the families to contact is Shawn Holiday, a member of his management team who served as the co-head of urban music at Columbia Records.

Scott also shared his devastation at the event in a statement on Saturday. “I’m absolutely devastated by what took place last night,” he wrote. “My prayers go out to the families and all those impacted by what happened at Astroworld Festival.” The rapper has also pledged to fully cooperate with the authorities as they undergo a full investigation into the festival’s deaths.

Scott and his partner, Kylie Jenner, had initially come in for criticism for allegedly showing insensitivity towards the victims by posting videos and pictures after the event, but Scott insisted that they were simply unaware of the full tragedy at the time.

“Anytime I could make out, you know, anything that’s going on, I stop the show and help them get the help they need,” Scott said in a video posted to his Twitter. “I could just never imagine the severity of the situation. We’ve been working closely with everyone to try to get to the bottom of this.”