Sherbrooke Police concerns cancel rap concert
A“Back to School Party’ featuring rappers Mike Shabb and Rymz scheduled for Saturday night in the Salle Bernard-bonneau at Montcalm has been cancelled by the City of Sherbrooke following a recommendation by the City’s Police Department.
A notice issued by the Sherbrooke Police Service (SPS) led to the cancellation of a contract with promoter BLK Management due to a fear of overcrowding and underage drinking.
"The room is located inside the Montcalm building, a high school, but outside of school hours, the Jacques-cartier borough manages its rental,” said Executive Committee Chair, Serge Paquin. “The Police Service questioned the appropriateness of renting this location for a show of this type, which was likely to attract minors when a liquor license had been issued. The city official who took note of the police recommendations decided to cancel the signed contract,"
Because it isn’t that simple to cancel a contract, a claim has been forwarded to the City, which has agreed to pay compensation to the concert promoter. The final agreement was in the process of being concluded on Tuesday, and will be kept confidential.
Paquin says he’s not entirely pleased with this outcome."instead of outright cancellation, it might have been better to set conditions and to frame the planned concert properly by ensuring that adequate security measures were put in place, but this wasn’t done. We were faced with fait accompli. This is the first time that something like this has happened," Paquin added, pointing out that the leasing process may be revisited to avoid a recurrence of this kind of situation.
BLK Management, for its part, used Facebook to decry profiling and denounce the discriminatory nature of the decision.
The Criminal Intelligence Section of the Sherbrooke City Police Service submitted a five-page report to the City of Sherbrooke mentioning that Rymz, a nominee for Rap Album of the year at this year’s ADISQ awards, associates with and collaborates musically with Soldia, whom the report describes as a person who has been in trouble with the law.
The report also mentions that Shabb, a native of Magog, is an individual with a grudge against Sherbrooke authorities and mentions that the rapper includes lyrics that are insulting and in bad taste and often employs vulgarity.
The report also claims that "this type of event" usually attracts street gang members that could be in contact with the clientele. At the Granada "I am not in the shoes of the official who made the decision,” Paquin added, “but I think that what was at stake is the fact that the room is in a high school. The promoter has also reserved the Granada Theater, another City institution, for the performance of the show." The performance is scheduled for January 12, 2018.
According to Granada management, nothing has yet been signed as details still have to be arranged, and organizers have to commit themselves to respecting the usual safety requirements. Otherwise, it says, there is no reason for the show not to take place saying that while Hip Hop music can be provocative and the vocabulary used bit raw, this isn’t the first time that a musical genre has offended some people, and that at one time, the blues were considered shocking and that Quebec legend Plume also upset people by using swear words in his songs.