Cypress Hill, a Southern California rap group announced that are cancelling their show at the Rialto because of Arizona’s new anti illegal immigration law.

Is it a big deal?  News reports don’t bother giving you the full story.

The Star didn’t bother informing its readers how many tickets had sold to date. The Phoenix New Times didn’t do much better, stating only that the Rialto was “expecting” to sell 1.000 tickets.  Either they didn’t bother specifically asking the question, or they did and didn’t bother to tell us the answer.  If Cypress Hill had sold 24 tickets, a cancellation would be a different matter than if they had been near a sell-out.  One website lists Rialto capacity at 1,800.

Also not reported was if the venue will sue the band for cancelling the show less than two weeks before the gig.  The venue passed other opportunities to make money by signing Cypress Hill.  Will the Rialto play the victim here or blame the state, or hold the band responsible for its action?

 It’s not easy to follow the logic of a band who wants to help ”those living in the struggle for their basic civil rights” who has made millions of dollars throwing around the N-word so freely and refering to women as “bitches”.   They also seem to have issues with the fact that marijuana is illegal as they sing “Hits From the Bong”, “I Want To Get High”, and “Smoke Weed”.  They want illegal immigrants decriminalized along with their pot.  This allows them to break a contract?

These rappers/civil rights activists are out to make a point:  we use racial and sexist epithets and we sing about illegal drug use, but don’t you dare pass a law that expressly affirms and protects civil rights of all that puts illegals who break the law into the hands of the feds. 

Oh, and by the way Cypress Hill, check out Section 834b of your own state’s penal code.