Detroit-based rapper Tiny Jag (born Jillian Graham) is speaking out after pulling out of a local music festival after learning people of color would pay less for tickets than while folks.
Graham said she found out about AfroFuture Fest’s pay model when a white friend sent her a screenshot via Instagram that outlined the pay difference, MSN.com reports. The early bird POC (“people of color”) ticket costs $10 while the early bird “non-POC” ticket is $20.
“I was immediately enraged just because I am biracial,” Graham tells Metro Times. “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.”
Graham immediately quit the event and hit up Twitter to publicly withdraw her support of the festival.
“A lot of the songs that I perform are from my first project called Polly — that is my grandmother’s name,” she said. “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.”
“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 added. “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.”
AfroFuture Fest shared a message on their event page on Eventbrite, explaining their pricing model — read their statement below:
(AfroFuture Fest’s statement)
Meanwhile, Tiny Jag says she’s down with equality but she doesn’t agree with the festival’s method.
“It’s non-progressive and it’s not solution-focused in my eyes,” she says. “It seems almost like it has spite, and unfortunately with spite comes hate, and that’s just not obviously going to be a good direction for us to go if we’re looking for positive change.”
