After last-minute line-up changes, it's time for Spring Fling

Today is the final day of classes of the spring semester, and while most students are preparing to buckle down for a week and a half in the library, members of the Yale College Council are out on Old Campus erecting a stage for this year's Spring Fling.

The end-of-semester concert, a highlight of spring for the last two decades, will take place all day tomorrow and will feature a few professional musicians and a handful of student bands. This year's lineup includes the DJ Diplo, the rapper Ja Rule, and the Australian singer-songwriter Betty Who.

The lineup saw some last-minute changes when Chicago-based Chance the Rapper, who was supposed to play in place of Ja Rule, canceled his performance on Tuesday for medical reasons. Rolling Stone reported that Chance also canceled an appearance at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Annual Festival in California because he is suffering from "a combination of the flu virus and tonsillitis." Last weekend, the rapper was running a 104-degree fever and was unable to speak.

Chance's cancellation left the Yale College Council with fewer than four days to find a replacement, and YCC events director Eli Rivkin ’15 told the Yale Daily News that the search was made all the more difficult by financial constraints. Chance's booking several months ago in the fall was relatively expensive, Rivkin said.

Adding some levity to the situation was a hoax e-mail masquerading as university president Peter Salovey's biweekly newsletter. The e-mail, which landed in students' in-boxes on Wednesday morning, claimed that Chance the Rapper would indeed perform this Saturday. Would-be Salovey claimed that Chance's cancellation was the result of a miscommunication: "I thought that 'sick' and 'ill' were being used negatively to describe the state of Mr. The Rapper's immune system. Now I understand that he was expressing enthusiasm about his performance," the e-mail read.

And now, following the announcement that Ja Rule—whose popularity has waned since his major hits, such as "Put It on Me," were released in the early 2000s—will perform on Saturday, at least one student is extremely displeased. Mila Rostain ’17 took to the opinion pages of the News this morning with a column entitled "Protest Ja Rule," in which she vows to carry signs and use earplugs in order to stand up against misogynistic overtones in the rapper's music. "I sat down to listen to his music Thursday morning and immediately enjoyed the catchy ’90s beats. But then … I realized that Ja Rule repeatedly glorifies rape, sexual violence, pimping and drugging women, among other illegal, immoral and misogynistic actions," Rostain wrote.

Spring Fling will begin tomorrow afternoon with performances by student bands.

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