Tiny Jag was excited when she was asked to be apart of the Detroit music concert, AfroFuture Fest. The biracial rapper calls Hitsville USA home, and to perform in her city was something that she looked forward to. However, after a friend sent her a photo of the festival's pricing rules, Jag was appalled at what she was seeing.
According to Detroit Metro-Times, AfroFuture was charging black customers less for their tickets than white customers. The screenshot Jag received was reportedly taken from Instagram that showed an "early bird POC" ticket as $10 while an "early bird non-POC" ticket was $20. Jag was irate. "I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial," she said. "I have family members that would have, under those circumstances, been subjected to something that I would not ever want them to be in...especially not because of anything that I have going on."
"A lot of the songs that I perform are from my first project called Polly — that is my grandmother’s name," Jag continued. "How do you want me to come to a performance and perform these songs off a mixtape that is titled after this white woman that you would have charged double to get in here? Like, it’s just outrageous from so many different angles."
The rapper also told the Metro-Times that she didn't like the message the festival was trying to make, even if it was meant to be progressive. Instead, Jag believes that it came across as spiteful and she didn't want anything to do with it. "It’s not fun to withdraw out of shows, especially at home, especially in your hometown, and especially when your supporters have been so good to you," she said. "It’s also not fun to do that to my fellow black women, like that sucks too. It sucks that this is a thing that’s put a wedge here."
The Metro-Times reports that AfroFuture declined to give them a comment, but the concert officials took to their Eventbrite page to explain why they decided to switch up their price points for festivalgoers.
Equality means treating everyone the same
Equity is insuring everyone has what they need to be successful
Our ticket structure was built to insure that the most marginalized communities (people of color) are provided with an equitable chance at enjoying events in their own community (Black Detroit).
Affording joy and pleasure is unfortunately still a privilege in our society for POC and we believe everyone should have access to receiving such.
We've seen too many times orgasmic events happening in Detroit and other POC populated cities and what consistently happens is people outside of the community benefiting most from affordable ticket prices because of their proximity to wealth.
This cycle disproportionately displaces Black and brown people from enjoying entertainment in their own communities.
As an Afrofuturist youth lead initiative the voices of our youth inform our resistance.
Here's what they have to say
"If you don't see my Blackness, you don't see me. Periodt!"