Ambridge hip hop concert canceled due to crowd concerns

AMBRIDGE – It can be difficult here, even for an Oscar-winning musical artist.

Beaver County has seen its fair share of Oscar-winning actors from Michael Douglas to Christian Bale to Denzel Washington, but one Oscar-winning rapper just had his planned visit here cut off.

Crunchy Black, a member of Three 6 Mafia, the Oscar-winning Memphis hip-hop group for “It’s Hard Out Here for a Pimp” from the 2005 movie “Hustle & Flow” was scheduled to perform on January 1 at a bar in ‘Ambridge. Several Beaver-Pittsburgh County hip-hop artists were also scheduled to entertain that night.

But the concert didn’t take place as the current owner of the Tick Tock Cafe canceled the event days before it happened.

Mark Pazzanita said he was concerned about a potentially large concert crowd in a location that does not normally host shows.

“I didn’t feel comfortable with it, mostly because I couldn’t be there,” he said this week.

Worried that the turnout would be bigger than the Tick Tock could handle, and with the Merchant Street saloon in the midst of a liquor license transfer, “I decided it would be best,” Pazzanita said.

Tick ​​Tock’s new owner partner, Jimmy Prekop, had booked the New Year’s Eve show.

Crunchy Black pivoted by arranging a meet and greet at the Pittsburgh studios of 1LiveRadio, an online radio station featuring music by independent artists from western Pennsylvania.

One of the co-promoters of the planned Ambridge show, Damon Foster, a Beaver Falls native of Mentool X Pansion Productionz (MXP), said he was only notified of the cancellation two days before the show .

“The new owner was very hopeful that this event would help turn the corner in helping to establish Tick Tock as a venue,” he said. “It was going to be a good idea for the bar in general, and the new owner put it all down in numbers and presented it.”

Hip-hop artists in Beaver Valley have struggled for years trying to find local venues that can host their live performances.

“Likewise, it just takes one bad apple to ruin a thing,” Foster said. “There are things going on in this business, but I always say that you are less likely to be negated with a decent event with strict security.”

This article originally appeared on Beaver County Times: The Oscar-winning rapper has had his Beaver County concert canceled