Park and Rec head says swearing violated contract

The organizers behind a hip-hop concert shut down by police last week say they’re disappointed with the way city officials reacted to the show at Bandshell Community Park.

Nyabang Diang believes area police and parks and recreation officials overreacted when they called for the show, featuring Minnesota and Wisconsin-based artists, to shut down minutes after it started last Wednesday. In addition, Diang and other people who attended the concert say news reports on the shutdown blew the incident out of proportion.

“It was supposed to be positive,” Diang said. “It was still positive.”

The concert, which billed XVOQ, Santana, Staylow El Humpo, KOA, Young Reason and KD, was postponed for more than an hour due to severe weather before organizers decided to start once more.

Yet problems arose after only a few minutes. A fight broke out despite calls by the artists to keep the event positive. Diang and Marquise Brown, also known as XVOQ, had broken up the fight and asked the people involved to leave by the time officers arrived.

Yet more police were called after neighborhood residents complained about the concert loudspeakers, as well as some of the expletives the artists used when addressing the crowd.

Diang and Brown had previously told performers to tone down any swearing, but they say some people were a little too passionate on the microphone.

“You’re going to have some of that,” Brown said. “But at the same time, we had families coming over and watching us.”

Kim Underwood, director of Parks and Recreation, decided to shut down the concert after police told her what happened at the Bandshell.

“You can’t have that sort of language,” she said. “You just can’t. You can’t be as loud as they were and use that language. It’s a family-friendly venue.”

According to Underwood, the concert organizers violated the terms of their contract with parks and rec by swearing onstage, as well as disturbing the neighborhood with how loud the concert was.

Yet the organizers say the concert hadn’t taken place long enough for it to be considered a disturbance, and they don’t believe the concert was too loud. Brown believes the concert was cancelled after several older residents stood on their porches and complained to police.

In addition, Diang and Brown say they didn’t know anything about the controversy surrounding KOA, the hip-hop group behind a concert in 2012 where five people were shot and injured at Lansing Corners. Only one member of KOA was scheduled to perform and wasn’t involved in organizing the concert, Diang said.

Though Diang acknowledges the organizers should have looked for another venue that would have allowed more adult music, she is still frustrated with the way the situation was handled.

“They deprived the community of something good,” she said.

The city’s parks and rec department will review its practices in light of the concert’s shutdown to prevent another incident, according to Underwood.