“Another day, another racial controversy at the Power & Light District,” read the first line of a Kansas City Star article this weekend. It’s our new friends Cordish Development back in the uncomfortable media spotlight!

The Blazers and our fair city are currently working with Cordish development to turn the Rose Quarter into a 24-Hour entertainment district resembling Kansas City’s (but with more “Portland flavor”). While those plans work through the public process, Cordish is racking up goodwill back in KC – first with a racist dress code and now snagging national headlines for allegedly kicking DJ Jazzy Jeff offstage for playing hip hop.

Jazzy left the Cordish-owned stage half an hour into his set Saturday night. “HOW DID THEY KICK ME OFF STAGE IN KANSAS CITY FOR PLAYIN HIP HOP…I’M A 25YR LEGEND…THIS IS SOME BULLSHIT,” rants Jazzy on his Twitter. “I MEAN I WAS PLAYIN SHIT LIKE JUST A FRIEND…ITS A HEINEKEN COMMERCIAL FOR GODS SAKE…AND 3000 PEOPLE WERE ROCKIN…WTF MAN”

One of the fans in the audience says, “Cordish had Jazzy Jeff escorted out by the fucking cops because P&L is a ‘family establishment.'”

But the president of the Power and Light District says that district officials simply “misspoke” and meant to ask Jazzy just to turn down the music to save their sound equipment.

Thanks to tipster and Kansas City native Kjerstin.

Sarah Shay Mirk reported on transportation, sex and gender issues, and politics at the Mercury from 2008-2013. They have gone on to make many things, including countless comics and several books.

7 replies on “Today in Alleged Cordish Racism: Say No to Rap!”

  1. Cause Cordish doesn’t know how to setup a compressor to protect their equipment in the first place?

    (Back when I worked as a roadie, we did about 800 shows, and I think we blew 1 speaker. Total. And it was a cheap speaker that had been sitting in a mildewy garage for 3 years, and it was weaker than we’d expected it to be.)

  3. What a bunch of assholes. I can’t wait to see what it’ll look like, probably about as much like Portland as an Irish pub in a rich Chicago suburb looks like Dublin.

  4. Jazzy Jeff…I’ve recently been wondering what happened to him.

    @Will Radik

    Imagine a bunch of empty stores surrounding a Buffalo Wild Wings, Olive Garden, PF Changs. That’s about what any development from Cordish will look like on nights there isn’t a Blazer game.

  5. For the “Portland” feel I see old bicycles hung on the walls of a TGI Fridays, and a server with a Keep Portland Weird button affixed to their suspenders (or would it just be suspender?)

  7. I’m confused again.

    Isn’t the Cordish development what the Mercury campaigned for when they sided with the architects in their effort to “save” the Memorial Colesium? Cause after all I am sure you thought this through and realized what the Blazers were actually doing right? You realized by blocking the baseball deal you were siding with the Blazers and their Cordish plans for the Colesium right?

    I expect to see Matt Davis and Sara Mirk the first in line at the opening of this monstrosity. Happily chowing down on some Buffalo Wild Wings. Maybe Brian Libby will be there staring at the one glass well left of the building trying to get their attention again to “save” the MC.

    After all this is as much your success as anyone elses (Paul Allen being the largest beneficiary).

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