Guess What? I’d Have Booted Lupe Fiasco Too

Apparently rapper Lupe Fiasco decided to use his invitation to perform at a private event last night as a means to take some shots at President Obama. Accounts differ as to why his performance ended earlier than everyone expected, but either way it ended badly.

Some who were there say Fiasco was booted off because he went on an anti-Obama tirade:

Lupe Fiasco just got thrown off stage here at the Hamilton Live after he went on an anti-Obama diatribe mid set.

— Josh Rogin (@joshrogin) January 21, 2013

Things going terribly wrong at @lupefiasco performance during #SURO. Kicked off stage, bashing obama.

— Matt Dornic(@mdornic) January 21, 2013

While the organizers of the event say it was something else:

Lupe Fiasco performed at this private event, and as you may have read, he left the stage earlier than we had planned. But Lupe Fiasco was not “kicked off stage” for an “anti-Obama rant.” We are staunch supporters of free speech, and free political speech. This was not about his opinions. Instead, after a bizarrely repetitive, jarring performance that left the crowd vocally dissatisfied, organizers decided to move on to the next act.

First of all, I don’t know what the event organizers were thinking when they invited Lupe Fiasco to an event around the inauguration. You know, the guy who just a few years ago had this to say about Obama:

“To me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America. I’m trying to fight the terrorism that’s causing the other forms of terrorism. You know the root cause of terrorists is the stuff the U.S. government allows to happen. The foreign policies that we have in place in different countries that inspire people to become terrorists.”

I mean, didn’t they do any background on this guy before they invited him to an inaugural-type event? Inviting a guy that thinks President Obama is the biggest terrorist ever is like putting Jeffrey Dahmer in charge of a wedding buffet. It’s just a bad idea. They should have seen this coming.

That being said, I hope people don’t rush into some ridiculous argument that they were somehow suppressing free speech last night. They were not. He was performing at a private event, and if the folks putting on that private event no longer wanted him on stage for whatever reason then that’s that. Game over for Lupe. Not to mention the government didn’t shut him down, the people hosting the event did.

In fact, I’ll go one better. I’m no fan of President Obama, but if I was having a private event and someone decided to do what Lupe did? I’d probably boot him off stage as well. He can make political statements and create scenes all he wants to, just not at my private party.