Over the weekend, the 5th annual Southern Entertainment Awards in Memphis proved to be a successful event until reports surfaced that a fight broke out between Kia Shine and The TMI Boyz. While details remained sketchy over the weekend as to what exactly caused the fight (some reports said it had to do with Wendy Day‘s comments about faking sales on a panel prior to the event), word is that Kia Shine took to the stage to air out his grievances with Day while presenting an award. When Day approached to reconcile with Shine, Shine‘s movements reportedly seemed to be of a threatening manner – which led to a scuffle with the TMI Boyz who reportedly came to Day‘s defense.
Wendy Day has issued a statement hoping to clear up matters. Here is the statement in its entirety…
“Last night’s 5th Annual SEA Awards were a wonderful finale to two spectacular days of free panel discussions targeted at independent and up-and-coming artists. Unfortunately, as local rap artist Kinfolk Kia Shine took the stage to present an award, he chose to use the opportunity to air a grievance he had with me (Wendy Day) over something I had said on one of my panels 2 days previous, in which his name was used. He said some very hurtful things about me to a very public forum. I have built my reputation over many years on helping artists, often for free, so it hurt me to hear him say that I had moved to his city and ‘raped its artists for money.’
Feeling that he and I should speak, I got up from my seat and moved to the back of the stage area alone, in view of Kia, so that we could talk when he was finished onstage. He chose instead to ignore me and not to acknowledge me until he was standing in front of his crew, where I had followed him. At this point he began screaming at me and because he was angry, he gesticulated wildly with his hands and did alot of pointing. Although I knew that I was not in danger because I have known Kia for many years, members of TMI Boyz are not familiar with him and saw only a very large, very angry man behaving as if he may get violent. They reacted out of an instinct to protect a woman they felt was in danger; a blow was struck and Kia was hit.
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Because security had already been summoned to escort Kia out of the building once he had begun shouting at me, the whole affair lasted only minutes and the award show went on without a hitch; we were all quickly back in our seats watching B.O.B. perform his hit “Haters Everywhere” and enjoying the rest of the show.
Overall, the 5th Annual SEA’s were outstanding, attracting a record crowd of artists and industry folk to Tunica, MS. The scuffle was unfortunate, but it in no way marred this wonderfully positive event.“
Nobody is exactly sure where this leaves the Kia Shine and TMI Boyz beef as DX will give you updates as they come along.
