Nas canceled his most recent tour date in San Diego for his “Hip Hop is Dead” tour claiming that he and his wife, singer Kelis, were met with “racist” employees who they said treated them like “terrorists”.
Radio station Z-90.3 host Tre interviewed Nasir, who expressed his disappointment with the House of Blues on Wednesday May 2nd, the same evening of his show.
Nas described the nights events as they unfolded, “We came to the club, all excited. Couldn’t wait to get there. [The tour venues] have been sold out every night. The energy from everybody has been crazy. Every time I come to San Diego, the energy’s crazy. Go to the venue and they ain’t let me in. I was outside with my wife and they treated us like terrorists. It was a little racist and we just don’t tolerate that. I just want everybody to know, don’t tolerate any form of racism.”
Nas said that he and his entourage didn’t respond in a way that could have made the situation much worse. Adding, “We deal with racists in a way that they are supposed to get dealt with. We dealt with it in a manner of respect when they should have been disrespected. We just left it alone, you know. It was just a real nasty, racist situation.”
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San Diego’s House of Blues had no comment at this time.
Nas said of the incident on-air, “There is no other side of the story. We were treated like terrorist. We had a whole bunch of security guys rush outside to me and my wife like we were terrorists. Its not like I came with 50 guys or nothing. It was just me, my wife, my DJ and my staff for the ‘Hip-Hop Is Dead” tour and they came at us like we was Osama Bin Laden or somebody,”
Nas was quick to point out, “That’s a good club. I’ve played that club twice. I love that club. It must be new management or something, I said [to them] ‘Do you treat Bon Jovi like this?’ They said, ‘No.'”
From a moral standpoint, Nas said that he simply couldn’t stay, regardless of the fact that the venue was sold out and fans were hugely disappointed.
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“Anybody that tolerates racism is a sucker in my book, all of that gotta stop,”Nas told the radio listening audience and vowed to return to San Diego only to perform to a much larger venue.
The San Diego House of Blues performance was the last date on the “Hip Hop is Dead” concert tour, a sad ending to a hugely successful tour.
