This past Veterans Day weekend, Tyler, The Creator held his annual Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival, a music festival in Los Angeles that started in 2012. Every year since then it’s been a mecca of rap artists and their fans, a weekend personally curated by Tyler himself. This year, however, it was full of mystique and eventual disappointment in the eyes of many attendees.
This mystery was due to the fact that one of the two major headliners remained a mystery until the beginning of their set on Sunday night. While many fans speculated Frank Ocean to be behind the question marks on the lineup poster, the performer was eventually revealed to be Canadian rapper Drake. While many people were excited about this surprise, other fans toward the front of the crowd were less than thrilled.
Courtesy: Los Angeles Daily News
Attendees began aggressively booing the performer, and chanting, “No,” when Drake asked the crowd if they wanted him to continue. He then proceeded to end his set early, saying, “I love y’all, I go by the name of Drake, thank you for having me.”
Drake was initially accompanied on stage by rappers A$AP Rocky and Lil Uzi Vert, both known friends of Tyler, The Creator. All three were a part of the surprise headlining act, though the crowd seemed to become especially irritated when Drake began to perform solo at the end of the night.
This incident has left fans of Tyler quite divided, many on one side saying that having Drake as the surprise headliner was quite disappointing and that with having a mystery headliner Tyler should expect some backlash. The other side emphasized that the fans’ behavior at the festival was embarrassing despite who they thought the headliner would be.
Tyler spoke out on Twitter following this event and explained, “I thought bringing one of the biggest artist[s] on the f**king planet to a music festival was fire! But flipside, a lil tone deaf knowing the specific crowd it drew. Some created a narrative in their head and acted out like a**holes when it didn’t come true and I don’t f**k with that.”
Tyler seemed to defend his musical guest choice but understood why his fans would be upset. Tyler further tweeted, “This ni**a did feel no ways! Song is beautiful. Also, mostly everyone was having a great time, those sh**s in the front area were the ones being mad rude, which, I can see why, but, nah, f**k that, y’all represented me and Flog to my guest and made us look sooo entitled and trash.”
Tyler also briefly changed his bio on Twitter, which read: “embarrassed by fans right now”.
Courtesy: Spin
Drake has also since spoken out about his side of the performance, captioning a photo on Instagram, “Plot twist… just signed a 10 year residency at Camp Flog Gnaw sorry kids see you EVERY SINGLE YEAR until you are 30.”
Thus, it seems like Drake is taking the incident with a grain of salt. However anyone feels about Drake, it’s clear that the festival has made waves throughout music culture in the last few days. Issues like this will likely make festival curators think more carefully about their lineups, and perhaps make festival-goers think more carefully about purchasing their tickets.
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