Action Bronson Claims He's Been Banned from Headlining NXNE

BY Josiah HughesPublished May 28, 2015

This week has been an interesting one leading up to this year's NXNE festival. Yesterday (May 26), a group of concerned Torontonians launched a petition to prevent rapper Action Bronson from performing a free outdoor concert at Toronto's Yonge-Dundas Square. Both NXNE and Action Bronson responded to the petition, saying the show would go on, but now the latter has claimed he's been banned from the fest.

In a since-deleted tweet posted Wednesday (May 27) evening, Bronson said he was banned from headlining NXNE. He compared himself to 2 Live Crew member Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell, whose sexually explicit lyrics often got him in trouble.
 

It's unclear exactly what the tweet means — perhaps Action Bronson will no longer be playing the same show he was originally booked for, or perhaps he's been banned from the festival altogether. We've reached out to NXNE for comment and will update when we hear back.

The petitioners'  issue with the rapper stems from the "violent misogyny" of the rapper's lyrics, particularly in a song called "Consensual Rape" where he describes feeding a woman drugs before engaging in group sex with her. The petition, which can be viewed here, currently has over 3,700 signatures.

Earlier today, Bronson defended himself with a pair of other tweets, both of which have also been deleted. They can be read below.

UPDATE: Action Bronson has since deleted his tweets about NXNE, so we've embedded screenshots. We're still waiting to hear back from NXNE on this matter.

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