The show?
Ghetto Prez: It was not a Sea-Sick Records show but a Gangsta Nutt record release party, and I was hosting the event. [Sea-Sick Graph-X postered and promoted the show.] Gangsta Nutt came to us, and we helped him out.
The gun battle after the show?
The bottom line is, there is no way for us to control the violence on the streets. The police have millions of dollars in their budget, a huge force behind them, and still they can't stop violence on the streets. So, as promoters of any genre of music, there is no way for us to totally control what happens outside of the club. All we can do is make sure that we have proper security and create a safe environment inside.... There is no doubt that it was gang-related, but the incident occurred well after the event. Ninety percent of the patrons at the event were long gone by the time that even happened--the parking lot was cleared.
Is there any way you could talk to the gang members and say, "Look, this is a black business, and it's hard for me to run a black business if you keep shooting each other at these events."
We do that all the time. I'm very much involved with everybody, gang members and non-gang-members, because it's not always gang members that create the violence either. Sometimes there are incidents at the club that have nothing to do with gangs: It's just two people having an incident and it escalates into violence. This particular incident, it was gang members involved, but that doesn't have any [connection with] the music that played.
I have been to several rap shows, and although most turn out fine, I also have seen a lot of fights break out over nothing.
There was 1,000 people listening to hiphop and rap up in the EMP last month with no incident. Where is that write-up of a great success, where are the pictures from that, showing us on stage at the EMP doing it big with 1,000 people with no incident?
We can go to a club tonight, any night of the week, and listen to hardcore rap music and there won't be an incident. So when an isolated incident does occur, everybody wants to hoop and roar and say rap equals violence.
Who should be accountable when shootings or fights occur?
I mean there's really no way for anyone to really be accountable for it. We can't control what a guy does outside on the block up the street from the club. There's nothing we can do about one or two ignorant individuals who want to fight.
