Hip-hop trio FreeBloo&theFreak were cut off mid-set during their performance at the Pecan Street Festival held at the Hill Country Galleria on September 12, 2026.
Provided by FreeBloo&theFreak
Hip-hop trio FreeBloo&theFreak (FB&F) was cut off mid-set during its evening performance at the Pecan Street Festival at the Hill Country Galleria on Saturday. The subsequent headlining set by Austin rap duo Blackillac was also canceled.
The group — consisting of Kardinal Bloo, Free Hamze and Locuust, also known as “The Freak” — told the American-Statesman on Tuesday that they believe organizers halted their set mainly due to their political statements. During the set, they made comments including “Free Palestine” and “Free Haiti.” Their performance also contained profanity, which they said was used sparingly.
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Luis Zapata, owner of Special Events Live Management, which produces the Pecan Street Festival, said it was profanity and not politics that led to the shutdown.
“We try to be responsible to the crowd that keeps supporting us year after year,” Zapata told the Statesman on Tuesday. “It’s not a matter of free speech. There’s no philosophical aspect to it. The moment you start using the f-word, you have no place in the festival. You can do that in a club, but not in a family festival.”
FB&F took to social media to protest. The group said that when the mics were cut, they continued to perform a cappella to an enthusiastic crowd. “As we proceeded to do so, a rep from the Hill Country Galleria told us that if we didn’t stop the performance, they would call the police and have us removed,” the band said in a statement provided to the Statesman.
A downtown Austin festival moves to Bee Cave
Hundreds of attendees walk among tents and booths on Sixth Street at the Pecan Street Festival in Austin on May 8, 2022. The festival moved to the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave last year.
Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman
Following the show, the Hill Country Galleria issued an apology, saying that the language and content were inappropriate for the event and did not reflect its values.
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“We were not aware beforehand that the performance would include this type of content,” a statement posted to the shopping center’s social media accounts said. “As soon as we became aware of what was occurring, we took immediate action and asked the performers to leave.”
Booker Lauren Bruno told the Statesman on Tuesday that a person who identified himself as a representative from the Hill Country Galleria told her the concert was shut down due to “concerns regarding what was considered appropriate for a conservative, family-oriented environment.”
The Pecan Street Festival is put on by the nonprofit Pecan Street Association. For 49 years, the twice-yearly event was held on East Sixth Street, which was originally named Pecan Street. Last year, the festival relocated to the Hill Country Galleria in Bee Cave, an upscale suburb roughly 15 miles west of downtown Austin.
Despite the early shutdown, all bands booked for the festival received payment.
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A missing clause in the contract
Hundreds of attendees walk among tents and booths on Sixth Street at the Pecan Street Festival in Austin, Texas on May 8, 2022. The festival, which bears the former name of Austin’s primary entertainment artery, no longer happens in downtown Austin.
Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman
FB&F says the band was never told not to use profanity.
“Nowhere in our contracts or event (communications) did they request a clean set,” Free Hamze said. “If they did, we could have easily accommodated that.”
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Bruno said Zapata never used the term “family friendly” when he tapped her to book the daytime event at the suburban shopping center. But an original contract intended for the event that Zapata shared with the Statesman included a “Specific Content” clause restricting “any content that is unlawful, pornographic, profane, racist, sexually explicit, ethnically or culturally offensive, indecent, obscene or defamatory.”
When Bruno received the contract, she felt it needed to be updated to correct “mistakes and outdated information,” she said.
She said she used the AI tool ChatGPT “as a drafting tool to help identify and suggest revisions.”
In screenshots of her chats shared with the Statesman, the chatbot said the “Specific Content” clause of the contract “gets messy” and suggested softening the clause to say, “Performance shall not violate applicable law or intentionally incite violence or unlawful conduct.”
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Bruno said she edited the contract on a shared DocHub account and that Zapata could see her changes. She passed the revised contract, which omitted the “Specific Content” clause, to Zapata for approval and encouraged him to have a lawyer review it.
Zapata said he failed to look over the revised artist agreement for changes and omissions before sending Bruno a message to move forward with the booking process.
Bruno said she provided a list of bands months in advance, and Zapata never raised concerns about content. Zapata said he reviewed some but not all of the bands that were selected to play the festival, and that choosing appropriate artists was the responsibility of the booker.
“The contract that was provided to the artists was different from the one provided to the booking agent. I don’t know why she changed it,” Zapata said. “The one that we sent (to Bruno) is our standard contract. We’ve put hundreds of bands on stage throughout the years and this is the first time we’ve had an incident like this.”
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The no-profanity message never reached the artists.
No profanity is ‘common sense’
Kara Falgout hugs a small goat in the petting zoo at the Pecan Street Festival in Austin on May 8, 2022.
Aaron E. Martinez/American-Statesman
Rapper Phranchyze, half of the headlining duo Blackillac, told the Statesman it seemed like festival organizers didn’t vet artists properly and didn’t know the content of their music, but he said he found it unprofessional that organizers “overcorrected and punished everyone.”
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“We were told that the previous act had used profanity, and for that reason they canceled the rest of the performances,” he said. “We were told our set had to be clean, but it turns out that was never in the contract that we signed… so that was misleading for sure.”
Zapata said at an event like Pecan Street Festival, where kids are present, the expectation not to use profanity is “common sense.”
“When they engaged in profanity, it was our responsible decision to cut them off,” Zapata said. He said the festival canceled Blackillac’s set because, “the disgust was so intense that it was decided to stop the music that day.”
“We work so hard all year long to provide a celebration and to make artists take money home,” Zapata added.
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“We could argue about if these were the right artists for something like this. That being said, they still deserve to be treated with professionalism and respect,” Phranchyze said.
FB&F echoed that sentiment.
“If they respected us as artists, they could have given us a warning or made the request midway through the set,” Free Hamze said.