Princess Nokia allegedly hit an audience member in the face when headlining the Cambridge University Charity Fashion Show.
The Cambridge Student reports that the rapper, whose real name is Destiny Frasqueri, begun her set by saying, “there are so many beautiful women of colour in here tonight”, before ending the set during her third song.
According to The Cambridge Student‘s witness accounts, Fasqueri then asked an audience member “are you being disrespectful?”, threw her drink over him, and jumped off stage before hitting him three times. According to gal-dem, Fasqueri also told the crowd, “I’m so sorry, but when a white boy disrespects you, you punch him in the fucking face.”
It is unclear whether or not the incident was provoked by the audience member. The audience member who was hit told The Cambridge Student: “I was standing in the audience and was told by a fellow audience member that the name of the performer was ‘Abigail’. Given that I was enjoying the performance, I shouted out ‘Let’s go Abigail!’. After I shouted this, she came down from the stage. She slapped me and threw drinks on me.”
One audience member took to Twitter to recount the incident which you can view below. Initially, Fasqueri retweeted this statement but has since un-retweeted.
.@princessnokia just punched a white guy in the face for disrespecting at a gig in cambridge and walked offstage i am LIVING YES GIRL
— rosa (@rosamariot) February 15, 2017
A comment-piece on the incident has also been published on FLY., Cambridge’s network for women of colour. The piece is co-authored by the network’s facilitator Richelle George. George wrote of the incident, “Though many of the attendees of the Fashion Show continued to party and enjoy the entertainments of the night, she was left shaken by an incident that will inevitably shape her perception of Cambridge.”
Update: GAIKA has published a series of tweets prompted by the incident. Have a read through them below.
i hope @princessnokia boxed that yute properly.
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
i call them shows sambo shows. super fucking disrespectful privileged audience who give absolutely 0 fucks about anything
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
just want you to sprinkle some cool blackness on their deadout thing
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
and then they get drunk and violate
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
it must be 100 time harder if you aren’t a man also
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
i played one show where this girl ran on the stage and began trying to grind with me during sodium, security did nothing
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
she repeated this during pmvd when i’m really just trying to concentrate on the crowd
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
finally upped the anti and started trying to pulll and my trousers during blasphemer. a song about black kids getting killed by police
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
i know why dean has a body guard.
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
too many people who go to ‘alternative black’ shows feel to violate casually
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
think about it, if you’ve seen my live show, what part of it suggests its ok to violate? same with Princess Nokia’s.
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
thats some extreme white privilege thing and i’m glad she sparked him
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
i have been generally thinking alot about ownership of artistic infrastructure and how we communicate. time fi make some moves
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
need to get far away from the crypto conservatives that populate and dominate the liberal arts world. they give no fucks about us
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
if we aren’t careful we will find ourselves beefing each other, insecure because we don’t hold any of the cards
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
how about event's that celebrate 'disruptive afro culture' or 'apocalyptic visionary art' minus us onstage feeling used and uncomfortable
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
might be kinda dry
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
instead we can just put on stuff ourselves, where black and borwn people don't feel uncomfortable and the soundsystem isn't a pile of shit
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
riders get filled and money get paid promptly and fairly. ie NO-ONE violates
— GAIKA (@GAIKASAYS) February 20, 2017
GAIKA discusses his experiences of white privilege and microaggressions in Crack’s dual cover story with Dean Blunt which you can read here.
We will update this story as we learn more.