Diddy Is 'Uncanceling' Travis Scott 30 Years After Facing a Tragedy Similar to Astroworld

Diddy asked the Billboard Music Awards to let Travis Scott perform at this year's show. The decision comes 30 years after he was involved in a similar tragedy.

Sean Combs press conference 1992
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Image via Getty/Clarence Sheppard

Sean Combs press conference 1992

This week, Sean “Diddy” Combs says he demanded that Travis Scott would have an opportunity to perform at the 2022 Billboard Music Awards, which Diddy is executive producing. It would be Travis’ first major performance since the 2021 Astroworld Festival tragedy. “I’m uncanceling the canceled,” Diddy said, referring to the backlash against Travis as the face of a tragedy in which 10 people died of compression asphyxia during his performance.

It’s fitting that Diddy would be one of the people, along with Kanye, standing with Travis and trying to bring him back to the stage. Diddy is familiar with being lambasted as the face of a venue tragedy, because of the 1991 City College of New York incident, which has eerie parallels with Astroworld. 30 years ago, nine people died and 29 more were seriously injured after an overflow of people inside the CCNY gymnasium caused people to be trampled. Diddy and Heavy D were co-sponsoring a celebrity basketball game and concert with superstars like LL Cool J and Mike Tyson in attendance.

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Both tragedies happened because of similar factors: both events were overcrowded, and the dearth of security couldn’t hold the throngs of people who forced their way into the venues without paying. In Travis’ case, thousands of non-paying fans stormed the festival grounds at Houston’s NRG Field (after Travis tweeted and deleted encouragement for them to do so). For Diddy, thousands of people rushed the locked doors of the CCNY gym after security had closed the overcrowded venue. Both events were overpacked because people sought an up-close glimpse at superstars.

Travis and others involved with the festival are facing $2 billion in lawsuits, and the Houston rapper has caught flack from the families of victims who feel like he’s been publicly unsympathetic to the people who passed. 

Despite all the ire he’s facing, recent album teasers indicate that Travis is trying to go forward with his career, and Diddy, who has an idea of the weight of the guilt he may be feeling, is trying to look out for him. Diddy’s career vaulted into the stratosphere after the CCNY incident, as his ability to find talent and star quality carried him through the controversy. Now, Diddy’s career timeline is stocked with so much other history that many young fans even know about the CCNY incident, which came back into the news cycle after Astroworld. But the tragedy is unforgettable for CCNY victims and their loved ones, as it is for those of Astroworld. 

It’s unclear what effect Astroworld will have on Travis’ Billboard viability and future concert prospects. There are a lot of questions to be answered, but Diddy is trying to help Travis back into the spotlight out of a subtle solidarity. Below is a refresher of what happened in 1991.

The tragedy

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On December 28, 1991, nine people died and at least 29 people were injured after a stampede occurred during a charity basketball game at the City College of New York. The Harlem event was reportedly organized by Heavy D and Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs, who was a 22-year-old party promoter, A&R at Uptown Records, and Heavy’s manager at the time. Heavy D and Big Daddy Kane, as well as members of acts like Boyz II Men, Run-DMC, and Jodeci, were playing in the game. Stars like LL Cool J, Mike Tyson, and Mary J. Blige attended the star-studded affair that was also promoted by New York’s KISS-FM.

The gymnasium had a capacity of 2,730 people, but the New York Times reported that at least 5,000 people came to the gym, and only 1,200 tickets were being sold at the door. Attendees were ushered into the building in two lines, separating those who bought tickets in advance from others who were purchasing them at the door. The path to the basketball court was supposed to be simple: attendees were being led through the lobby to a ticket taker, who would then direct five people at a time down a stairwell that led to the gym. 

There was only a single person checking thousands of tickets, which caused a bottleneck of people who grew impatient from the wait. The game was scheduled for 6 p.m., but it still hadn’t started by 7 p.m., further stirring agitation. Along with the growing tension from the throng of people, some of whom had been waiting in chilly December weather since 2 p.m., was the rowdiness of fans excitedly cheering on celebrities as they entered the building. Then-City College spokeswoman Rita Rodin told the Washington Post in 1991 that “the rock stars were coming in and out, and that might have added to the chaos.” Diddy’s former bodyguard Gene Deal, who was helping secure the event that night, recalled in a 2021 livestream that the arrival of Mike Tyson and LL Cool J incited a hysteria from the crowd, some of whom sought to follow the stars through the building. 

Bedlam erupted when the event organizers decided to finally close the front doors to the building and stop letting people into the already overpacked event. But a pack of people broke through the glass doors and rushed the lobby, which caused a melee. The Washington Post reported that “a miniskirted ticket-taker who presided over the cash box jumped up and ran down the stairs leading into the gym,” then closed the door to the gym (which only opened from the inside). Attendees then rushed the stairwell as hoards of people stuffed the lobby era. 

The people at the bottom of the steps got wedged between the gym door and the glut of rowdy people at the top of the steps. Others were trampled and fainted as chaos ensued around them, and attendees didn’t realize what was happening in the stairwell. The game had started in the gym, and everyone else was focused on controlling the crowd in the lobby, leaving them to reportedly suffer for 15 minutes. 

Attendee Lori Grant told the Washington Post, “Everyone was so close together, you felt you could not breathe because of the weight of people pressing on your back.” The Post reported that when the doors to the gym finally opened, someone in the gym said that the crowd at the bottom of the steps had been “packed in like sardines” against the door. The game was immediately canceled, which caused another stampede as people abandoned the basketball court. 

“The crowd was big, and it was uncontrollable,” event attendee Randy Jones told the Post at the time, “They just kept pushing and pushing. . . . While a lot of this was happening, there was no police here at all.” 

Diddy’s former security guard Gene Deal said in a 2021 livestream that Puff first asked him to bring 18 people to help secure the venue, but then told him the day before that he only needed eight people, because Heavy D had hired the Fruit of Islam, the security wing of the Nation Of Islam, to work the front door. Deal said that he got to CCNY, saw the long line and lack of security personnel, and said to himself “this ain’t gonna work in Harlem.” He says he suggested to the FOI, to no avail, to “make a box” formation to keep the crowd from storming the door, “or somebody’s gonna die here tonight.” When he told Puff the same, he says he was told, “Don’t worry about the door.”

The Post reported that there were 30 Pinkerton guards acting as campus security, as well as six police sergeants and 60 police officers called by then-CCNY chief of security Charles Delaney. But unfortunately those 100 or so people were no match for the large crowd who stormed the venue. Eight people were crushed to death that night, and another woman died from stampede-related injuries on January 1, 1992. 

The aftermath

Sean Combs press conference 1992

How Diddy recovered

Diddy Getty image 1997 movie awards

How involved parties have reflected on it

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There’s not much media online with Diddy’s reflections on the CCNY tragedy, but his few quotes about the incident express regret. In 1992, he admitted it was “hard for him to live with” the notion that he was most known for being behind the CCNY tragedy. In 1998, after testifying during a civil court date after the incident, he said, ‘’City College is something I deal with every day of my life. But the things that I deal with can in no way measure up to the pain that the families deal with. I just pray for the families and pray for the children who lost their lives every day.’’

Other people who were involved have expressed their lingering trauma from the event. 50-year-old Sharmayne Jones, who attended the event, told The Daily Beast, “I still find myself traumatized. If I go to a concert, if I’m not in the first five rows, I’m not going. I don’t do large crowds; I don’t do larger rooms.”  In 2019, a documentary called “No Way Out”, The 1991 City College of NY Stampede was released. In a trailer for the documentary, an attendee named Joanne said that being at CCNY was a “deep, deep experience for me,” and that she watched people take their last breaths. 

While discussing Astroworld during an interview appearance last year, Dame Dash said, “I’ve seen what it looks like to see people get smothered in the confusion and the chaos that comes with it. I’ve actually been in that atmosphere. I actually know what it feels like to be in that situation. I was in the stands [during CCNY] because I got in early, but they all got stuck in the staircase and shit. I lost my friend from school. Her name was Dawn and she died.”

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