Stormzy Leaves Austrian Fest After Manager and Friends Get Racially Profiled

Stormzy was scheduled to perform at Austrian music festival Snowbombing on Thursday night, but he decided to cancel his appearance last minute due to what he described as an incident of racial profiling from the event’s security. Posting on Instagram, the English rapper explained the situation further for fans who were looking forward to seeing him perform.

“My manager and all my friends who were at the festival were racially profiled, targeted and aggressively handled because they had ‘reason to believe someone was carrying a weapon,'” he wrote via his Instagram Stories. “The security targeted them (despite no one fitting the description), were physically aggressive when handling them, and there’s been no effort from the festival to actually deal and address the problem.”

Speaking further about the situation, he described the experience as “soul draining.” He apologized to fans, but added, “This is necessary in the grand scheme of tryna’ fight back racism.” Snowbombing addressed his cancelation on their website, writing, “We are doing everything we can to understand the full situation and are treating this with the utmost seriousness to ensure this does not happen again.”

Check out what he had to say on Instagram above.