Musical acts back out of performing at Trump-affiliated concert series

At least five of the nine featured musical acts set to play in a concert series organized by the Trump administration to mark the United States’ 250th anniversary have dropped out, just one day after the lineup was announced.

The first to drop out, hours after Wednesday’s announcement, was Morris Day, who called his scheduled participation in the summer concert series on Washington DC’s National Mall a baseless “rumor”.

Later on Wednesday, Young MC posted a message that began: “I have informed my agents that I will not be performing at the Freedom 250 event.”

“The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event,” he added, before casting doubt on the claim from Freedom 250, the group created by Donald Trump to organize the celebration of the US’s semiquincentennial, that the series was nonpartisan.

And on Thursday, the Commodores, C+C Music Factory and Milli Vanilli all either dropped out or expressed surprise that they had ever been booked.

“The Commodores will not be performing,” the group said in a statement. “Our music has always been our voice and we choose not to publicly affiliate with any single political party.”

Freedom Williams, C+C Music Factory’s lead rapper, said in a video statement apparently recorded in a bathroom that he had been blindsided by texts from friends horrified that he was “doing the Trump Freedom show” and “fucking with Trump”.

“I’m like: ‘What? What are you talking about?’” Williams said he replied to people “I’ve known for years, who know I don’t fuck with Trump”.

“I know where I stand. I know who the fuck I am,” he added, before explaining that his agent had not mentioned any connection with Donald Trump when he pitched the show.

After going online to research the series on Wednesday, Williams said, he told his agent he was out.

Williams went on to attack Trump, saying that, as a New Yorker, “I know the type of fucking anarchy he creates” and bringing up the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis by an ICE officer. But the rapper reserved his most intense anger for Democrats who threatened to cancel him if he did not drop out. Later in the statement, Williams suggested that he might still change his mind and perform with the “Maga crew” out of spite, even though, he said, the series was in honor of “250 years of motherfucking capitalism and death. It’s 250 years of straight murder.”

Milli Vanilli singer Jodie Rocco told the Associated Press that no one had even asked her or her sister Linda Rocco or anyone else in the current group to perform. “My sister and I were shocked to see our name, ‘Milli Vanilli’, as one of the performers,” Rocco wrote to the AP in an email.

The poster for the Freedom 250 series included an image of former Milli Vanilli frontman Fab Morvan, who has been performing apart from the group.

At least one of the featured performers, Vanilla Ice, said in an Instagram video that he was still in. “I’m super honored to do this concert with everybody,” he said, on the apparent assumption that he will not, in the end, be performing alone. The rapper has performed at multiple New Year’s Eve shows at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago beach club.

Last December, as the deadly immigration crackdown by federal ICE agents ramped up, the two leaders of the effort, Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, were filmed singing along with the rapper to his 1990 hit Ice, Ice Baby.

Freedom 250, which Trump launched late last year, said in a statement to the Guardian that it is a “nonpartisan 501(c)(3) dedicated to uniting Americans around the nation’s 250th anniversary”.

“Freedom 250 is focused on our signature celebrations and events that honor our history and engage all Americans — welcoming all who share our goal of commemorating this milestone in a way that uplifts and unites America,” said spokesperson Rachel Reisner.