Young MC Follows Morris Day in Exiting D.C. ‘Freedom 250’ Festival Over Trump Connection, as C+C Music Factory Weighs Options: ‘The Artists Were Never Told About Any Political Involvement’

On the very day the “Freedom 250” concert series was announced, rapper Young MC became the second artist to publicly back out of the government-sponsored festival taking place on the National Lawn in Washington, D.C.. His exit following Morris Day‘s statement earlier Wednesday that he and the Time would have nothing to do with the newly announced patriotic series, an outgrowth of an Independence Day initiative tarted by the Trump administration.

Meanwhile, a third artist that had been announced Wednesday morning, C+C Music Factory frontman Freedom Williams, posted a fired-up, profanity-laced eight-minute message in which he initially said he’d planned to back out of the show after learning about Trump involvement. Then Williams backtracked and said C+C Music Factory might well go ahead with the gig after all, to show he was impervious to the backlash and could not be told what to do by angry commenters.

Young MC’s message to fans on social media Wednesday night was short and to the point: “I HAVE INFORMED MY AGENTS THAT I WILL NOT BE PERFORMING AT THE FREEDOM 250 EVENT,” he wrote. “The artists were never told about any political involvement with the event. And despite the claims by the organizers that the event is non-partisan, Spin magazine describes it as ‘Trump-backed.’ I hope to perform in D.C. in the near future at an event that is not so politically charged.”