Lupe Fiasco Escorted From Stage At Pre-Inauguration Concert

By Chuck Sudo in Arts & Entertainment on Jan 21, 2013 4:00PM

Rapper Lupe Fiasco made headlines over the weekend when he was escorted from the stage at a pre-inauguration concert in Washington for performing his song “Words I Never Said,” which contains the following lyrics critical of President Obama.

”Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn’t say shit That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either I’ma part of the problem, my problem is I’m peaceful And I believe in the people.”

Lupe was performing as part of the StartUp RockOn event at the Hamilton Live and apparently performed “Words I Never Said” for nearly 30 minutes before security and event organizers took to the stage and asked him to leave, which he eventually did. So did Lupe use the concert as an opportunity to make a political statement, or did he try to attract attention to himself? Probably a little bit of both.

As we noted in June 2011 Lupe defended the song by telling CBSNews.com’s Shira Lazar, "My fight against terrorism, to me, the biggest terrorist is Obama in the United States of America." So he wasn’t only referring to the Obama administration’s policy in the Gaza Strip, but “escalated drone attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen and other countries; Gitmo and Bagram; the Obama Administration's liberal assassination policy; the continued use of cluster bombs; the Patriot Act and its extensions.” (Lazar’s agent told Chicagoist at the time the interview was not edited to highlight the “Obama is a terrorist” remark.)

The flip side to that coin is: Know your audience, Lupe. He was asked to perform at a pre-inauguration concert in front of hundreds of Obama supporters and he chose to make a statement. Of course it’s going to go over like a fart in church. And Lupe’s performance wasn’t the same as “Kid Rock or Ted Nugent…They talk smack all day and never get shut down” as Davey D of Davey D’s Hip-Hop Corner suggests; Kid Rock and Ted Nugent know their audiences.

StartUp RockOn released a statement saying kicking Lupe off the stage had nothing to do with the song selection.

StartUp RockOn is all about startups helping startups. At Sunday night’s Inauguration Celebration at the Hamilton Live, organizers set out to honor innovative visionaries with grants, accolades and a party worthy of the success we achieved at the RNC and DNC this summer.

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.

The party continued as planned, and we celebrated the announcement of CodeNow’s winning the Grant Challenge. CodeNow is a non-profit startup based in Washington DC that teaches “underrepresented high school students basic skills in computer programming.”

Unfortunately we may never know Lupe's side of the story. He stopped updating his Twitter feed and scrubbed all his tweets in December.