A court has decided to clear hip-hop musician Drake from a case involving the tragic Astroworld concert in Houston in 2021, which claimed the lives of ten people.
The festival’s headliner, rap sensation Travis Scott, had Drake as a special guest. On November 5, 2021, he and Scott played together after the event, when the audience went wild, and many people were packed together to the point of total immobility. Officials from the festival and the police were attempting to stop the performance.
Drake, Scott, and Live Nation, the producer of the event, were among the defendants who were sued by the families of the ten concertgoers who died and hundreds more who were injured.
District Judge Kristen Hawkins issued a short order dismissing Drake from the lawsuit on Wednesday.
At a Houston court hearing on April 1, Drake’s (real name: Aubrey Drake Graham) attorneys said their client was not responsible for the concert’s organization and, hence, should not have been held financially accountable for the casualties.
The Canadian rapper said in a deposition he gave in Toronto in November that no one had informed him that there were persons in the audience having cardiac arrests or other ailments only seconds before he went on stage. He added that The audience was just a blur, and he couldn’t make out individual faces when he was performing.
Ezra Blount, the youngest victim, who was nine years old, made a video while sitting on his father’s shoulders.
Shown to Drake at his deposition, an attorney asked if he could see the terror on their faces.
“Yes, sir,” the rap star said.
This line of questioning proved fruitless for the litigator.
A grand jury decided not to indict him or any of the other five individuals in connection with the fatal performance.
The victims, whose ages varied from nine years old to twenty-seven, succumbed to compressive asphyxia, which a medical professional compared to being slammed by a vehicle.
On May 6, the first trial involving these claims will occur.
