SAN FRANCISCO–Fantastic Negrito’s performance on Saturday, August 8 at Outside Lands music festival was canceled because police detained him for allegedly selling artist-only wristbands to the audience. Xavier Dphrepaulezz, 47, was detained for three hours and handcuffed outside of Golden Gate Park, but he denied via Twitter his involvement in selling those tickets.
Dphrepaulezz told Yahoo Music that he arrived at the festival area with his driver, Alistar Monroe and his intern, John Beckmeyer, on Saturday when about 10 San Francisco police handcuffed him. “They were really aggressive; they handcuffed us, made us get on the ground, all that routine,” he told Yahoo Music. “I’m thinking there’s some sort of mistake, and this will just take a minute to sort out and I’ll be on my way.”
Authorities detained the artist and his crew because they had found a listing on Craigslist that was selling an extra artist-only wristband, which belonged to Beckmeyer’s girlfriend, who could not attend the concert. Beckmeyer confessed to having put up the add in Craigslist all on his own, but Dphrepaulezz was still kept in detention.
The festival informed the fans that they would have to cancel Fantastic Negrito’s set. In a statement they released, they said, “In all circumstances, we are most concerned with the safety and security of our attendees, artists and staff. We continuously look to protect and maintain the integrity of our credentialing system, and are so sorry that the artist was not able to perform due to this unfortunate breach.”
The artist maintains that Beckmeyer was a good person, and a good intern. “He didn’t know he was going to be in trouble,” he told Yahoo Music. “He is a really good guy, an exceptional guy, a good intern. He just made a dumb mistake that affected all of us.”
