Rapper Lomepal will not sing at Cabaret Vert next Thursday. The festival, which will be held from July 16 to 20 in Charleville-Mézière, has just announced in a surprise press release that it preferred to remove the rapper under investigation for rape from its programming, in order to “allow time to step back and of silence”, while “justice carries out its work”. The artist had just performed in concert in Cannes, at another festival.
“Le Cabaret Vert believes that the presumption of innocence is a fundamental principle”, explains the festival in the same press release, before recalling that it is up to justice to do “in complete independence, its work”. “Nevertheless, the Cabaret Vert cannot remain indifferent to the emotions that arouse this complaint and this, in accordance with its values”, continues the press release. It is in this context that the organization, which learned “at the same time as all of you”, that the artist was under investigation, chose “the best possible decision”. The rapper’s concert, scheduled for Thursday, August 17 in the evening, will therefore be canceled.
The charges against Antoine Valentinelli began with the Instagram post of an independent journalist, Jenna Boulmedaïs, on July 19. “It has been two years now that I have heard, in the music world, testimonies of women who have suffered inappropriate and unwanted gestures from Antoine Lomepal”, she explained, before denouncing: “The whole music industry is aware.”
A few weeks later, the Paris prosecutor’s office revealed that a rape investigation had indeed been opened. A complaint had been filed against the rapper in 2020, for facts that allegedly occurred in New York three years earlier. The latter had denied the accusations and had performed in concert at a Cannes festival, in relative calm.