When Rob Base died on May 22 following a private battle with lung cancer, Young MC was left reeling. Base was a close friend who had attended his wedding in Phoenix just a few years earlier. So when Young MC’s agent told him he could take Base’s June 26 slot at a Washington, D.C. concert called “Freedom 250: The Great American State Fair,” he accepted.
What Young MC says he didn’t know at the time was that the event had ties to the Trump administration.
On Wednesday (May 27), organizers posted an Instagram flyer touting the lineup, and the backlash came quickly. The bill, heavy on ’90s nostalgia, included Vanilla Ice, Young MC, Milli Vanilli and C&C Music Factory, alongside the Commodores, Flo Rida, Bret Michaels, Martina McBride and Morris Day and the Time. Within hours, Freedom Williams of C&C Music Factory and Morris Day and the Time had both distanced themselves from the event. Morris Day issued a statement on social media denying that his group was participating.
“Contrary to rumors, Morris Day & the Time will not be performing at the ‘Great American State Fair,'” Day posted on Instagram. The caption read, ”It’s a No for Me.”
Young MC backed out soon after. Online commenters had flooded his page, with some calling him a “MAGA douchebag” and shaming him for accepting the gig. Young MC says the event was misrepresented from the start.
“I have informed my agent I will not be performing at the Freedom 250 event,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event. And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is nonpartisan, SPIN magazine describes it as ‘Trump-backed.’ I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”
Young MC, who helped define ’90s hip-hop with his massive solo hit “Bust a Move,” explained why it was important for him to drop out.
“I had no clue it was considered a ‘Trump-backed’ event, so that was new to me,” Young MC says. “My whole thing was ‘tell me what the event is, what it’s about, who you are, and then give me the choice of whether I want to do the event or not.’ I was never given that choice. I was told one thing and then it was a bait-and-switch. All the comments I’ve seen from the artists that have dropped out thought it was supposed to be a regular show in D.C.”
Young MC has performed under various administrations since George H.W. Bush was in office. He backed Bill Clinton and was a presidential partner for Barack Obama. But, like many Americans, he says he slowly became disillusioned with the two-party system and began identifying as an independent.
“I perform in front of crowds that have whatever political beliefs they have, and that’s not an issue for me,” he says. “I’m going to continue to do that, so it is what it is. But when an event is presented to an artist they’re booked on as nonpolitical and nonpartisan, and then turns around and becomes hyper-partisan like it’s a rally, that’s when I have a problem.”
Young MC decided to vacate his slot late Wednesday night. He also responded personally to several negative comments, and many fans applauded his transparency. The person who called him a “MAGA douchebag” eventually apologized.
For Young MC, music is sacred, and he doesn’t want to see it weaponized.
“I regard music as the thing you go to get away from politics and news, so any divisiveness you feel in a political space, I want to get rid of that if you listen to my music,” he says. “I’m not asking people who they vote for when they come to my show or listen to a song, and I’m not trying to lead people in one direction or the other.
“Even me personally, I’m a political independent—not only for my beliefs—but it’s just the way I am. I’m so apolitical in my music that if I’m going to get any controversy, I want it to be over something that I’m actually standing for—not a bait-and-switch where I turn around, and people are like, ‘Oh, you’re doing a MAGA show.’ And I’m like, ‘Where did that come from?’”
Some fans have encouraged Young MC to fire his agents, but he says he’s done more than 500 shows with them and has no reason to believe they were trying to sabotage his career or mislead him.
“It really doesn’t make financial sense,” he says. “As soon as you get affiliated with a group on one side or the other, you’re costing yourself money from getting potential gigs on the other side, and that’s how they look at it. Regardless of what my personal views are, they want me to have the opportunity to play in front of as many people as possible. For me, I take that approach and keep politics out of my music.”
And for anyone wondering if the artists who dropped off the bill coordinated their responses, Young MC insists that’s not the case.
“Have you ever seen something where all the artists involved are saying the exact same thing?” he asks. “It’s not like we got together and said, ‘Let’s craft this story.’ No, everybody’s saying the same thing. We did not know. To us, it was a regular show in D.C. I’m at the point where that’s really the bigger point rather than like, ‘Oh, you bowed to the pressure.’ It really isn’t that. I don’t see how anything positive could come out of that show, so I reacted accordingly.”
Screengrab by author
