During a show at Vienna’s Arena Wien, Jazz saxophonist and songwriter Kamasi Washington ended the show early after claiming a security guard assaulted his father. Washington’s father, Rickey Washington, is a member of his band. After Washington played his song “Truth” from his EP Harmony of Difference, the artist walked out on the performance. In an explanation to the audience beforehand, Washington stated, “The reason why we’re late tonight is because a security guard here assaulted my father, Rickey Washington. I met this man face to face. He looked at me and laughed. He said, ‘He was acting like an asshole.’I said, ‘You don’t get to do that to him. We’re all going to leave.’” See the whole video below:

 

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Today was a tough day. As we were entering our show at #arenawien one of the security guards assaulted Kamasi’s father, @rickeywashington . When Kamasi calmly asked for and explanation from the security guard and his superior, they laughed in his face and told Kamasi that is father was acting like and asshole 🤷🏽‍♂️ It took everything in me to not respond to this level of hate with hate in return. Instead Kamasi kindly got on stage, explained to the audience what happened. We played and gave all our love to our audience for one song and left the venue as a united squad. That was not cool @arenawien, Vienna Austria. #westcoastgetdown #fuckracism @kamasiwashington #unitedwestand

A post shared by Tony Austin (@tonyaustindrums) on Jul 8, 2019 at 12:59pm PDT

In response to the incident, the Arena Wien apologized publicly on Facebook. They went on to promise refunds to ticket holders and stated that all the proceeds from the night will go to a charity that they did not name. Check out the apology here.  

Washington will perform at Wilco’s Sky Blue Sky Festival in Mexico in 2020. In August of this year, Washington will also be performing at Afropunk.  

Photo Credit: Mauricio Alvarado