Music

Rapper cancels concert at Oklahoma University over racist fraternity

by Tyler Munro

Waka Flocka Flame has announced that he’s cancelled his upcoming appearance at Oklahoma University in the wake of ongoing controversy regarding racist fraternity Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

According to the Guardian, Waka was set to perform for the fraternity, which he partied with last year, before videos of them singing an incredibly racist song about them never allowing black people into their little boys’ club surfaced online. Littered with n-words, the song also makes light of lynchings and is blissfully ignorant in every imaginable way. “You can hang him from a tree, but he can never sign with me,” is one of the chant’s more atrocious lines.

Justifiably, Waka Flocka Flame says he’s “disgusted and disappointed,” writing on Instagram that his shows are about “all races partying having a good time and enjoying themselves together peacefully.”

“Racism is something I will not tolerate,” he concluded. In a separate statement, his manager says that the decision not to perform isn’t to “punish the university,” acknowledging that it’s primarily a small faction at fault, but that his cancellation serves as a “collective reminder of the stain in which remains.”

And he’s not alone. Yesterday, Deadspin reported that the Oklahoma Sooners had lost their top recruit due to the frat. Offensive lineman and four-star recruit Jean Delance had committed to the iconic football program before the controversy ignited, but told Fox4News that while he’s glad how the school handled it, “it was very disturbing” and he “didn’t like what was going on.”

Ultimately, football has lingered in the centre of the controversy. On Sunday, video of the frat singing the racist fight song on a bus leaked online, and within one day the frat had closed its Oklahoma chapter. On Monday, Sooners linebacker Eric Striker was furious in his reaction to the frat: He, like many athletes at the school, had been used to help make their parties bigger and better, and you could sense not just the rage, but disappointment, in his reaction.

He said he’d been told he could stay at their parties “as long as he didn’t cause any trouble,” made reference to the frat being straight-up afraid of black people and pointed out that this is an ongoing problem in the school’s culture.

“All of this has happened, and we kept it within and pushed it under the rug. After (the video), we have to take a stand. Our voices have to be heard.”

Losing out on recruits is a start. Part of the NCAA’s exploitation racket, Oklahoma, and schools like it, rely on their free labour and athletic prowess to make hundreds of millions of dollars a year.

Losing out on performers is the next step. And given this video that appeared of their house mom, Beauton Gilbow — which, let’s face it, is barely even a name — drunkenly rapping over a Trinidad James song, Waka Flocka’s probably just the start.