On Friday, eight people died and dozens more were injured at Travis Scott's Astroworld music festival in Houston, Texas.
The tragedy has sparked an important conversation about the responsibility of performers to ensure crowd safety. Resurfaced videos of musicians who stopped shows for the well-being of their fans have gone viral, including one featuring A$AP Rocky.
The TikTok video of A$AP performing at the 2019 Rolling Loud music festival in California has already been viewed over 1.8 million times in the past day. It showed the rapper dancing until he noticed people on the floor who needed help. He immediately demanded the music be turned off.
"Everybody, back up! Look! Watch out!" he yelled while pointing to the people in distress.
"Pick those girls up, bro! Pick the girls up! Pick the fucking girls up, what's wrong with y'all?"
Then, he ordered the crowd to make room. "Back up! Back the fuck up!" he repeated as people shuffled around to make space. He refused to resume the show until his fans were okay.
Naturally, the comment section was full of praise for A$AP's swift and forceful response:
One person pointed out that people in the crowd seemed more willing to help the fallen fans once A$AP told them to:
And many made comparisons to Astroworld:
