A Swedish court ruled the rapper was a flight risk and must remain in a detention center for two weeks while investigations continue.
The rapper ASAP Rocky has been detained in Stockholm for two weeks while investigations continue into an assault charge.
A court ruled on Friday that ASAP Rocky, 30, whose real name is Rakim Mayers, was a flight risk and must to be confined to a detention center, his lawyer, Henrik Olsson Lilja, said in a telephone interview.
“He of course is very disappointed and this is a catastrophe for his tour,” Mr. Olsson Lilja added. ASAP Rocky was scheduled to headline Wireless, a London festival with a capacity of 50,000, on Sunday. Tour dates in Ireland, Germany, Russia and elsewhere across Europe were also planned.
Mr. Olsson Lilja said the detention was unnecessary and would be appealed. “Of course a world artist like him would come back to Sweden if there is a trial in the summer or fall,” he said.
The events under investigation occurred on Sunday in Stockholm, where ASAP Rocky was staying before a concert there this week. A video clip published on Tuesday by Aftonbladet, a Swedish newspaper, appeared to show the rapper lifting a man off his feet and throwing him to the ground in a city street.
ASAP Rocky posted two clips on his Instagram from around the time of the incident. The rapper said they showed his entourage being followed by two men.
In one clip, there is a scuffle and one of the men’s headphones break apart. In the second, Rocky and his entourage repeatedly tell the men to stop following them. “We don’t want to fight you,” he says in the video.
“We don’t know these guys and we didn’t want trouble,” Rocky wrote on Instagram. “I’m innocent,” he added, in another comment.
Mr. Olsson Lilja said ASAP Rocky had acted in self-defense.
The rapper’s detention is the second issue on his European tour this summer. On the afternoon of June 28, he said on Twitter that he would not be performing at that day’s VestiVille festival in Lommel, Belgium, because of “security and infrastructure concerns.” The mayor of Lommel canceled the festival shortly afterward because of safety concerns, the BBC reported.
Karin Rofander, a spokeswoman for the Swedish Prosecution Authority, said in a telephone interview that the investigation was proceeding under a preliminary charge of assault. A trial would occur if the prosecutor decided there was sufficient evidence at the end of the investigation. Source: NY TIMES
