If the theme was “Everybody Hates Troy Ave” then truly words have unbelievable power! The leaked surveillance video of the rapper busting his gun and the incident escalating into 1 dead and even Troy Ave being wounded and put in the hospital was definitely the worst thing that could have happened going into Summer 16. Let’s be real. Now venues in New York and other cities can’t wait to say no to all rap shows all summer 16 and they will use this incident as an excuse.

It’s hard enough to get a lot of venues in nice areas to be open to do a hip-hop event in general. Many people may not know this, but when putting on a “rap concert” the promoter and the people involved are scrutinized and interrogated on all details from the type of music being performed down to number of security needed. Sometimes venues ask that the people throwing the hip-hop event to provide their own security. It’s all in an effort to make the price so high that we either pay up and take a financial L or just say skip it and go somewhere else. That happens whether you are a known promoter or event planner or not. It’s all based on the “element being brought to the venue.”

The thing that’s terrible about this is, a known rapper did some of the shooting this time. This isn’t the classic “ni**as don’t know how to act” scenario. We know this ni**a. That alone is going to trickle down and force answers to questions like,  Who was security? Who let him in with the gun? and Why did him and his whole team think this was wise and he was one of the people that had the most to lose at the event that night?

It’s unfortunate. It’s sad. It hurts hip-hop. From what I’ve been seeing, Irving Plaza has canceled every rap show now. I understand Joey Bada$$ show being cancelled due to the history with Troy Ave and what could possibly still be lingering, but I even seen a cancelation for a Mac Miller show. Come on now; Mac Miller?! That would be the last place I would expect an incident or tragic occurrence of this nature.

Unfortunately, hip-hop hasn’t built the crossover rapport for situations like this to be deemed as “isolated incidents”. Doesn’t help that the genre of music mostly puts out aggressive, drug induced, violent with lack of compassion for community, law or self product and it profits. It may be “telling a story that’s all entertainment” but that’s hard to convey when a “storytellers” art becomes life and another human being dies.

As a lover of East Coast violence in the form of music, I understand and I’m torn. We can’t look at other genres and say “Well, violent stuff happens there too.” Reason being is because the guy who bust his gun at Irving Plaza is also the guy that put hands on ILoveMakonnen and that guy was an artist on the come up. Talk about no points scored in the game. That shouldn’t even be a Troy Ave fast fact. It’s doubtful Brett Young is going to show up to a Kenny Chesney show, with his rifle and pop somebody. Many blame Justin Biebers “hip-hop friends” on why he was making so many mistakes. Many Rappers want to be “Real” to a fault and the culture and it’s fans suffer. Until that correlation is understood this issue will remain.

I pray all the tours and shows that were supposed to happen do happen because rap music fans need it. The catch 22 is we need the shows to happen so cats got something to do and not be in the streets doing dumb ish. However, a shooting just happened at a T.I show because cats is out in these streets doing dumb ish.

We can’t make light of the situation, but we can’t let that situation define what hip-hop is about in 2016.