ARRON EDWARDS S Blog

The most important news rippling thru the local music community this past weekend was an altercation that curtly finished the Twin cities hip hop Awards show, which was held in the first Ave mainroom on Fri. night. According to reports from one or two witnesses, a fight broke out between emcee Boima Freeman and an unidentified stage crasher straight before to Illuminous 3's set, and the fight escalated into an all-out brawl when audience members jumped up on stage to intervene and throw their own punches.

Larry Lucio, Jr. Over at Amplified Life has the most complete report of the event posted on his blog, including his play-by-play of how the fight broke out :

All of a sudden, I heard Boima's voice get louder and louder. He was yelling to anyone that would listen to “get this — off the stage”. Now if you had been watching Boima all night, you would not have managed to discern whether he was major or joking. Apparently he was heavy. Dead major.

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Then a fight broke out. Boima and this other dude started throwing blows. I took some steps back. Then other people rushed the stage and knocked my papers over along with the HUGE table they were resting on. Again I stepped back. But the stage was filling up…. FAST.

When I saw some dude pick up a bar stool and whip it at my head for NO apparent REASON, I knew this was way beyond a man-to-man fight. Folk were taking the opportunity to act a fool.

Both Lucio and rapper Franz Diego, who was getting ready to take to the stage with Illuminous three when the fight broke out, expressed disappointment in the acts of violence at the show and said that the awards rite was an otherwise relaxed and friendly environment. Diego posted his own take on the events on his Facebook page :

I am so personally hurt by this because I have seen the sweetness of this community, since I entered into it as a young teenager. I have been so welcomed, led and sorted by so many people in this city under the umbrella of hip hop culture that it's a part of me and i want to reciprocate it. We need events like these, we need to grow and celebrate and share and network and show off and have fun, we need that more despairingly now than before. But folks have to comprehend the price of that first and till they do, we will continue to have issues like these.

One of the TC hip hop Awards organizers, DEPth, spoke up in the comments of Franz Diego's Facebook entry :

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And host Boima Freeman has since apologized on his very own Facebook page :
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There has also been a YouTube video circulating thru the blogs of the outbreak ( warning : Contains explicit language ) :

And both Chris Riemenshneider from the Star Tribune and the bloggers at LOL / OMG have reports of the situation. It's unfortunate that the awards ceremony had to be cut short because of the actions of what reduces down to a few people, and we are wishing that the TC Hip-Hop Awards will be able to rally next year and built up more support re PR in the final community.