Students at Princeton University in New Jersey are petitioning to have Big Sean dropped as a main act from the school's annual Lawnparties event, Hip Hop DX reported.
The petition, started by Duncan Hosie '16 and Rebecca Basaldua '15, accuses the Detroit rapper of promoting rape culture and misogyny in his lyrics.
Hosie told The Daily Princetonian that after he saw the Undergraduate Student Government's (USG) promotional video for the event, which featured Big Sean repeating the lyrics "stupid ass bitch" from his hit song "IDFWU," he reached out to Basaldua. Together they agreed to start a petition against Big Sean's involvement with the event and open up a dialogue on campus about the selection of acts for school events like this one.
"After I saw that video, I started researching Big Sean's language and I found language that was both misogynistic and homophobic," Hosie said. "We wrote an op-ed piece that we published on Google Docs [on Sunday] and wanted to see the number of supporters. Right now, close to 500 people have signed."
The petition asserts that "USG Should stop promoting rape culture and misogyny by rescinding the offer to Big Sean to headline Lawnparties Spring '15. In the future, USG should strive to bring non-misogynistic acts to campus."
According to Simon Wu '17, USG's social committee chairman, the school organization generated a list of five to 10 musical acts which are subsequently sent to an entertainment agent that connects them with artists.
"We send them to the agent and then the agent will get back to us with prices and availability, and this is a process that happens about six or seven times before we can find somebody that works," Wu told The Daily Princetonian. "The contracts are signed and it's unrealistic to stop this from happening."
However, Wu said the controversy surrounding Big Sean's performance could help to reform the artist selection process.
Students have already begun hanging posters around campus in protest of Big Sean's selection.
