Waka Flocka, who was slated to perform in the village of Oka in Quebec, has decided to skip the party and cancel the show in order to stand in solidarity with the First Nations of Kanehsatake Indigenous people of Canada.
The Atlanta-bred rapper was originally set to perform at the Oka Kanehsatake Music and DJ Festival on July 31, but most recently revealed that he will choose to respect the Natives’ desire to keep non-natives off their land.
“Waka Flocka is canceled due to the Natives not wanting non-Natives on their territory because of the hurting they are going through. We decided to side with them in solidarity,” Waka’s team announced on Ricky D Event’s Instagram.
The decision came as First Nation people across Canada deal with newly-discovered atrocities suffered at the hands of settlers
Notably, the bodies of 1000 indigenous children have been found in mass grave sites on the grounds of former residential schools once funded by the federal government.
“The discovery of these types of graves was something my colleagues and I had talked about for years. But it was still a shock,” forensic pathologist, Kona Williams, said. “These are my people. Some of those children could be my relatives.”
The history of these gravesites is traced back to the forced assimilation of at least 150,000 Indigenous children who were sent to residential schools to be stripped of their identities. While the existence of these graves has long been known within Indigenous communities, these discoveries this summer have introduced many more to the harsh history of The First Nations.