I woke up this morning to a message from a friend, asking me what I thought about the “Russ/medallion incident”. I had no fucking clue what they were referring to and looked it up. I also had no idea who Russ was.
So here’s my understanding of this all, and you can be sure to leave me an angry misspelled comment to correct any inaccuracies:
Russ, born Russell James Vitale in 1992, is an American rapper from New Jersey who has risen to a significant amount of fame. He had a part in M. Night Shyamalan’s 2024 film “Trap”, has recently released a book, and his album W!LD was released this year. He performed at a concert on July 12, 2025 in Toronto, ON – a large outdoor show. During the concert, a fan passed out and Russ was alerted to the fan in distress and stopped the show to get them help (Travis Scott could learn from this perhaps but hey what the fuck do I know). A while after this, the story goes that an indigenous woman who was in the stands was trying to get Russ’s attention in order to gift him a hand beaded medallion she had made commemorating his new album W!LD. Members of the audience on the floor assisted the woman to pass the medallion up through the surging crowd, working together to pass it to an indigenous man up front who waved the beadwork piece and allegedly used his phone light to illuminate the piece, to get Russ’s attention in order to give him the piece. This caused Russ to assume another medical emergency was happening.
Russ became angry about this and stopped the show to deliver something of an onstage rant (captured on video and now infamous on the old TikTok) about being disrupted during his performance. During the rant he called the medallion “dumb (he says he said ‘some’, I heard ‘dumb’) shit”, and lectured the audience about respectful behaviour during his show and told the person holding the medallion to “Get a grip”. He did not accept the medallion gift, though he did later accept and hold up a pair of used women’s panties.
The internet, of course, being the internet lit the fuck up when videos of the exchange were posted. Russ went online to defend himself and accused the would be gifters of “faking a medical emergency” in order to get his attention. He called them selfish and stated they wanted to make the show about them and he didn’t like that. He stated he felt “rattled” and upset and that the incident interrupted “an introspective song (Superman)”. He’s made multiple videos on it, he’s been commenting and commenting, and has doubled and tripled down on his behaviour and keeps asserting he was right.
So. Yikes to all of this, right?
It sounds like a shit show and it doesn’t exactly make Russ sound like a great dude. I’d never heard of the guy before all this, and I did check out some of his music and it personally wasn’t for me, but I do get why a lot of people would probably really like it.
I’ll try to be objective though, as I myself stand on stages fairly regularly and even in a room that seats about 500 people, I cant see shit beyond the first few rows with stage lights shining into my eyeballs.
For Russ, it’s possible that what he saw was simply lights and commotion. It’s very likely he didn’t see the medallion at first, or even if he did, that he likely didn’t understand the significance of it. He’s not indigenous and he’s not Canadian.
I can also understand at least in some ways, how Russ may have and likely did feel rattled thinking another medical emergency had occured.
However, my sympathy does dry up a little bit with a lot of Russ’s behaviour after the show specifically around accusing people at the show of “faking a medical emergency”. Those are big words and a big accusation. How do you know that’s what they did tho? There has to be some kind of actual evidence for that.
Sure, they may have had phone lights on, sure. Buuuuuuuuuut, how were they to know that that’s signalling medical emergency? I’ve personally being going to concerts for a very very long time as I’m older than the hills, and I wouldn’t immediately recognize lights flashing to mean that someone was in distress. Maybe he said that to the crowd. I don’t know. To say someone was faking an emergency means you’re saying there was ill intent, malice behind the actions, and I do think it’s likely that there wasn’t malice. Sometimes people just get caught up in a moment. If I was at a show and someone had a gift like that, I’d probably help them try to gift it as well – but I also understand the significance of a piece like this.
I think it’s important to understand that we don’t all communicate in the same language or understand the same signals. There’s a lot of variables that can be at play here. Maybe the people involved in trying to get the medallion to Russ simply were trying to get his attention, simply trying to do something nice and meaningful for the medallion maker, trying to help a clearly devoted fan have a moment with the artist. Maybe they didn’t know what the signalling meant, or how it could be interpreted.
Concerts tend to be busy and chaotic environments and there can be a level of intoxication for performers and attendees alike and I personally find Russ accusing these folks of “faking a medical emergency” to be disingenuous and runs on a lot of assumptions. Momma always said when we assume that it makes an ass of u and me, so… maybe mom was on to something.
I’m willing to offer too that Russ was likely rattled after the moment. Sure. It’s happened to me and I have absolutely nowhere near the fame he has. It doesn’t take much to wreck up the headspace of being on stage and doing a performance. I get it. However, once Russ was confronted with the footage of the incident – a woman and her gift, a crowd trying to pass it forward, etc, and learning of the deep significance of the gift, Russ could have made a statement and said something along the lines of “hey man, sorry about all this, I was kinda freaked out, mistakes happen, I’ve had some time and distance and I’d really like to get the medallion, sorry for the confusion etc”, I’m no publicist, so anything along those lines. Something to smooth things out and mend fences you know?
Sometimes, with apologies, you apologize even if you think you don’t need to. It probably would have meant the world to just say something like that, accept the gift, and be gracious and move the fuck on.
I dislike that Russ felt motivated to bring up previous positive interactions with the indigenous community as if this incident was weightless and he could be granted escape from critique for having previously not been seen to be rude and arrogant about such things to other indigenous people – it reeks of “well I have a ___ best friend” and it’s like bro that’s not the point.
I wonder, too, about the medallion maker and the people who tried to help her get her gift to Russ. How must they be feeling? I couldn’t imagine trying to gift something to someone, or trying to help someone gift something to someone and thinking you’re doing something good and kind and then just like getting a tongue lashing, being made to feel small, less than, embarassed, humiliated, and then the drama gets splashed all over the internet for chuckleheads to dissect in the black and white cognitively distorted thinking that the internet loves.
I’m mixed race indigenous – Anishinaabe/Ukrainian. My father was a residential school survivor and grew up on the Mishkeegogamang reservation in North Western Ontario and I currently reside on the traditional, ancestral and unceded territory of the Tk̓emlúps te Secwépemc. Beading is a very sacred and respected part of indigenous culture (also Ukrainian culture). Because I understand how sacred, meaningful, time consuming and laborious beading and beadwork can be, my immediate reaction to all of this is one of deep hurt and I feel so incredibly sad for the woman who did the beadwork, for the people who helped to take it to the front of the show, and the man who tried to do something kind on behalf of another fan. If, you happen to be reading this, I am so very sorry that this happened to you. Please do not allow this incident and ensuing drama to stop you from beading, shining your culture with pride, and for helping others – this is the way of the indigenous community. You did a good thing. You tried. I truly believe that your hearts were in the right place. My heart goes out to you and I hurt for you and with you.
How could one ever listen to the music again? How could you not feel that little dagger of shame in your heart everytime? I would be so very crushed.
Recently, actually, I tried to gift something to a member of my community – something I had very carefully selected and picked out and saved for just the right occasion and the gift was unequivocally rejected in a deeply hurtful way. That experience changed me. It hurts to even write about it, to be honest. So I think of that and think of this fan and their friends, and other people at the show and think of how this experience must have soured something that once meant a lot.
No, maybe it wasn’t done perfectly, trying to give this gift. But what situation is ever perfect?
Maybe we need to stop tearing the absolute shit out of each other just because we show up to this shit heap of a life in imperfect ways. I’d personally rather have someone show up in an imperfect way with a heart full of good intentions, than for someone to show up perfectly with a heart full of malice.
Holy sweet merciful lord is it that difficult to just make things right and lay off the tough guy rapper shit and just say you’re sorry, accept the gift, use the thing as a teaching moment like hey, maybe you don’t know this but flashing lights makes me think medical emergency?
Merkules, a Canadian rapper, ensures that he takes time out of every stop in Kamloops, BC to visit Jessie Simpson, a Merkules fan who was savagely attacked and left with a severe brain injury and requiring 24/h care after being attacked by a Kamloops vigilante. Merk doesn’t have to do this, but he does it for his fan, and because that’s just who Merk is.
Ice Cube also famously stopped a show to accept a medallion, so like.. my brother.. come the fuck on here.
You’re an artist and when you create, sometimes you just kinda gotta accept that people are going to want to have special moments with you – it means they love you and your work. But I guess that’s easier said than done because damn, some people do be kinda cray cray out there. I’m saying this as an admin for a popular musicians facebook group and holy lord has that shaved years off my fucking life, but that’s another story for another time.
I dunno, man. I wasn’t there at the Toronto Russ show obviously, but I have seen the messy online drama about this that now has Russ fans making some deeply concerning and racist statements about indigenous people, and also has people on the other side telling Russ to die. Neither of these things are helpful, or beneficial in this situation.
A person on facebook KB wrote a statement on facebook suggesting that indigenous people stop gifting sacred cultural items to famous people and I both disagree and agree with the statement. I understand not gifting people things and that being a reaction to incidents like this. I really do. I’ve gifted beadwork I’ve made for people only to find it at the thrift store later, it hurts man.
But at the same time, gifting, and this sharing is part of indigenous culture, part of the community. In many ways and for me at least, it’s how I show a very deep love.
I tend to not communicate great, especially in person. Being on the spectrum, I struggle to put into words a lot of my feelings (it’s one of the reasons I write and take photographs, and yes, do beadwork), and these things help me to show a very deep special part of my love to someone or something.
Beading takes hours, sometimes hundreds of hours to do, and it’s so very sacred.
I feel very in touch with a deeply personal part of myself and who I am and where I come from when I am beading. The medallion in question, was, as well, just achingly beautiful.
I guess I don’t have solutions for this, likely because there isn’t really one.
I did want to say that while I’m not here to tell you to stop listening to Russ or his music, there’s a ton of cool indigenous rap and hip-hop artists out there that deserve support and to be heard.
The Halluci Nation (formerly A Tribe Called Red)
Snotty Nose Rez Kids
Drezus
Supaman
Nataanii Means
and of course
Antoine Edwards Jr who had this to say:
There’s more, of course, but those are good places to start.
I also want to say that, straight up, I’m always accepting gifts, beadwork, poems, stickers, love notes, kind words, food, coffee, tobacco, and heck, I’ll take your old gitch/panties too why not. Or you can follow me on Insta, that works too.
Here’s a beadwork piece I’ve been working on (and it’s hip hop related – the logo for the Random Bastards Swedish hip hop collective). I’ve been calling this guy the deadly spov.
Anyways, that’s it. Rant over.
Chii Miigwech
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