Lil Wayne has cancelled his high-profile spot at Miami’s troubled Rolling Loud festival after refusing to be checked by festival security.
This weekend has seen the world-renowned hip-hop festival Rolling Loud hold its fifth anniversary event at Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
Headlined by the likes of Migos, Travis Scott, and Kid Cudi, the event has drawn in thousands of eager fans, though it hasn’t exactly gone off without a hitch.
As Rolling Stone reported earlier this morning, an active shooter situation on Friday night caused panic as a number of frightened fans sought refuge from a falsely-reported threat.
“Shortly after 11pm on Friday night, there was a disturbance that led a large group of fans to believe there was an active shooter within the festival grounds,” Rolling Loud organisers later explained.
“The commotion resulted in these fans running out of the venue, some of whom were injured and/or scared in the process.”
“Security and public authorities immediately sprung into action, established it was a false alarm and there was not an active shooter in the festival.”
— Rolling Loud (@RollingLoud) May 11, 2019
However, the bad news didn’t stop there, with two big names not performing their scheduled sets due to varying reasons.
As NBC News reports, 21-year-old Kodak Black was arrested prior to his Saturday performance on charges of “third-degree criminal possession of a weapon and unlawful possession of marijuana.”
While Kodak Black had previously been arrested on similar charges back in April, officials state that the rapper’s arrest was made following “an extensive investigation conducted by the U.S. Marshals, ATF, and Miami-Dade Police Department’s North Side Gang Unit.”
Kodak Black is set to appear in court on Monday in Miami, Florida.
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
— Lil Wayne WEEZY F (@LilTunechi) May 12, 2019
https://twitter.com/LilTunechi/status/1127378045193658369
The most interesting of the events at the Rolling Loud festival happened to be that of Lil Wayne’s, whose Saturday performance also didn’t go ahead as planned.
Set to take to the stage on Saturday around 11pm, Lil Wayne declined to appear, citing a refusal to be checked by festival security prior to his performance.
Taking to Twitter soon afterwards, the rapper explained; “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,” he noted.
“I do not and will not ever settle for being policed to do my job and give you guys a great show.”
While the Rolling Loud festival has not addressed Lil Wayne’s statements directly, they did however Retweet his messages, though it’s unclear if this was just done to convey the information to fans.
In related news, Lil Wayne is set to head out on a US tour with Blink-182. To celebrate, the two acts teamed up to perform a divisive live mash-up of hits ‘What’s My Age Again?’ and ‘A Milli’. Check it out below.