Arrested Development, Atlanta’s pioneering Southern hip hop group, brought its message of peace to Music Midtown many times over the years. But now frontman Speech is expressing his outrage over “insane” gun laws that appear to have triggered the concert festival’s cancellation.
Speech says it’s “really sad” for musicians to lose money and connection with their fans to a gun-carrying urge that he describes as pretty much the antithesis of music.
“Music is a unifying force, and by nature it’s able to accomplish unity and peace in ways that other things don’t. And I’m including religion and politics and nation borders,” he said in a phone interview this week. “Music has a way of uniting people even if they speak a different language, if they’re from totally different political backgrounds, cultural backgrounds — it’s a unifier. And to put guns in the mix of a music festival — it just absolutely makes no type of sense.”
Arrested Development, a Grammy-winner that remains popular three decades after its hit debut album, was not scheduled to play this year’s Music Midtown. The group just wrapped up a tour in Greece and 25 U.K. cities and is heading back to Europe shortly.
“All developed nations that don’t have these same mass-shooting issues,” noted Speech about America’s expansive gun laws. “So it’s even more disheartening when you realize it doesn’t have to be this way.”
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Arrested Development’s Speech fears ‘insane’ gun laws after Music Midtown cancellation
