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Hampshire College Cancels Afrobeat Band Shokazoba Following Protests On Facebook

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Friday night's "Hampshire Halloween", an annual event at Hampshire College in Massachusetts, was a success according to the event's Facebook post on Monday.

"Thank you everyone for a great Hampshire Halloween. We had a great turnout, great music, and most importantly, lots of happy Hampshire students!"

Mixed feelings remain, however, over the decision by the Hype Committee, which planned the event, to remove one of the featured bands the day of the show, Mass Live reported.

According to Shokazoba's keyboard player Jason Moses, the Hype Committee canceled his group's performance after a slew of Facebook posters took offense to a musical group that played a genre called Afrobeat but didn't look or seem African. Moses was incensed by the decision, even though the Hype Committee still paid them, according to Mass Live.

"We are appalled," Moses told FOX411 on Tuesday. "The reason they (Hype) gave us was that their students felt unsafe. When we asked what made them feel that way, they had no concrete answers and the comments about us from a small group of people were deleted from the Facebook wall.

"Our band was extremely excited to play, and although race shouldn't even be an issue here, we are not an all-white band. We are extremely diverse and over the years have had African-American, Asian, Latino - a lot of different races and ethnicities play with us. The things said about us were not accurate," he said. 

The Hype Committee announced its decision to remove Shokazoba on its Facebook wall Friday, citing "dialogue and discomfort expressed by members of the community in person as well as by email, Facebook, and other means."

Hampshire College spokeswoman Elaine Thomas said students "questioned the selection of one band, asking whether it was a predominantly white Afrobeat band, and expressing their concerns about cultural appropriation and the need to respect marginalized cultures.

"Unfortunately, voices unconnected to our campus and to the events of Hampshire Halloween drowned out a reasonable conversation about how to ensure that the entire student community could have a safe and happy evening," she said. "As can happen on social media, posts from off-campus individuals trivialized the concerns of our students and made them feel disrespected."

Facebook users have continued to express themselves on the Hype Committee's wall, though the frequency of comments has decreased significantly since the initial wave of protesters and the second wave of mostly Shokozoba defenders following the band's cancellation.

Activity on the Shokazoba's Facebook page has gone from outrage to rallying cries to citations of Hampshire's honor code to a more reflective message on Monday and a link to FOX's coverage of the story on Tuesday.

Monday's post read:

"Censorship of music is an inherently problematic course of action. However, we would like to formally apologize to anyone we may have inadvertently offended from the misuse of certain nomenclature on facebook. We've learned a lot through our recent experience about privilege and racial theory. Thanks so much to everyone who has helped us to more clearly understand what we have been through, and what so many people go through on a daily basis. We hope as a band to continue to learn and be more sensitive to such important issues facing so many people in our communities and elsewhere. Let's continue the dialogue without censorship, and hopefully we can all enjoy the music together."

Shokozoba will play next on Halloween in Burlington, VT. Video of a show from 2011 below:

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