Shortly after the Gamecocks’ decisive victory against the Tigers in women’s basketball on Sunday, the University of South Carolina issued an apology for its arena DJ playing a song by the late father of a Louisiana State University player.
South Carolina at number twodefeated LSU, then ranked No. 5.Friday night in Columbia, two great programs that have won the last three NCAA titles square off against one another in a hotly contested matchup.
Additionally, the late rapper Camoflauge, whose real name was Jason Akeil Johnson, performed “Cut Friends” by the arena DJ, DJ T.O., during the post-horn party.
Star LSU guard Flau Jae Johnson, the rapper’s daughter, was not happy with the music selection and took it as a crude jab. Johnson, who also raps, was born in 2003, five and a half months after her father was killed.
“This is just rude conduct, but I’ll take my L on the chin. That’s amusing,” she wrote on X Saturday.
Like Johnson, USC deemed the DJ’s choice of music “inappropriate” and “disrespectful.”
According to a statement from USC, her behavior was disrespectful to the LSU program and supporters and obviously distressing to Flau Jae Johnson and her family. Conference rivalries and fervent fan groups shouldn’t be utilized to personally target athletes; rather, they should be used to further the sport. After a game in which both teams garnered the kind of national attention that women’s basketball has earned, we are sorry that it came to that in our facility.
Although DJ T.O. expressed regret for the song she chose, she maintained that she had no malice and had been a longtime lover of the song. The DJ claimed to be from coastal South Carolina and to have grown up listening to Savannah, Georgia-based Camouflage.
In a statement on Saturday, she wrote, “I apologize for playing Cut Friends Instrumental at the game yesterday.” “My goal is to have fun and make sure other people have a good time, so I never mean to offend or disrespect anyone. I’ve been playing it for years, even at other games, because I’m from the Lowcountry/C-Port area, but I shouldn’t have played it during yesterday’s game.
According to the school, DJ T.O. was suspended for the Gamecocks’ upcoming home game against Auburn on Sunday. The next home game for South Carolina is against Florida on February 13.
The DJ will meet with the school, according to the school, “to provide further education on our expectations of her in the future.”