A rap-dominated music festival scheduled this weekend in Northern California has been canceled after the organizers allegedly failed to fulfill their contractual obligations.

The XO Music Festival, slated to go down July 13-15, will no longer happen, reports Variety on Wednesday (July 11). The showcase advertised a lineup featuring a range of hip-hop legends, including Ludacris, T.I., Dipset, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Fabolous, Biz Markie and the Sugar Hill Gang. Seven stages at the Contra Costa Event Park in Antioch, east of San Francisco, were expected to host over 100 performers.

The festival and the venue released conflicting statements about why the event was canceled. "Due to lower than anticipated ticket sales and in part due to the fact that there were some negative media reports targeting us, with which we strongly disagree, the XO Music Festival ... will be postponed to another time," reads a since-deleted statement published on the festival's website.

Contra Costa Event Park CEO Joe Brengle told East County Today that while organizers paid $27,600 in rent, they failed to obtain proper health permits. "Due to the promoter[‘]s lack of fulfilling contractual obligations ... in the best interest and safety of our facility, event attendees and the City of Antioch have no choice but to cancel the XO Music Festival," Brengle said.

Doubts emerged about XO Fest's viability after several artists announced in recent days that they would not be performing, citing deceitful and unfair business practices by the organizers, one of whom was arrested in February for his involvement in a real estate scam.

"This company lead many of the artists to believe this was a legit concert, signed contracts, used our images and names (which btw was against contract stipulations) to sell tickets, but never confirmed with financial contractual agreements," the singer Trinere wrote on Facebook.

The festival responded to these allegations by denying that the festival was endangered. "Honestly, everything is perfect," wrote an unidentified person operating XO's Twitter account on Monday (July 9), in response to questions about the event.

The whole debacle recalls last year's disastrously failed Fyre Festival in the Caribbean. Ironically, XO's scheduled headliner Ludacris has spent this week avoiding the controversy while snorkeling in the Bahamas.

You can read two artists' posts about withdrawing from the festival and its lineup below.

XO Music Festival
XO Music Festival
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