The Make America Slime Again (M.A.S.A.) Tour by rapper Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, better known as NBA YoungBoy, was intended as a celebration of a successful album run. Instead, it has morphed into a national headline, a harrowing sequence of near-fatal crowd surges, unprecedented security deployments, and a single, utterly shocking act of violence that has exposed a raw, deeply unsettling crisis within the world of large-scale hip-hop concerts. The sheer intensity of fan loyalty, combined with genuine street threats and a dangerous lack of preparation, has turned one of the year’s biggest tours into an unsettling spectacle that has already seen an elderly venue employee brutalized and the headliner himself physically rescued by police.

The Kansas City Horror: A Seating Dispute Turns Vicious

The defining, most emotionally jarring incident of the M.A.S.A. tour occurred on September 24, 2025, at the T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. The victim was Thomas Schlanger, a 66-year-old guest services employee who had dedicated 17 years to his job, ensuring the smooth operation of concerts and events. His professional career was violently shattered in a matter of seconds.

The incident was rooted in a mundane, routine request: an attendee was sitting in the wrong section. Schlanger simply approached a 14-year-old concert-goer and politely asked him to relocate to his assigned seat, a task he had executed thousands of times without issue. The response, however, was anything but routine.

The confrontation escalated with terrifying speed. The teen violently shoved Thomas Schlanger to the ground and then began a brutal, merciless assault. The attack lasted approximately 20 to 30 seconds, during which the 14-year-old landed over 10 clean punches to the elderly man’s face and body while he was sprawled defenseless on the concrete floor. The ferocity of the assault was so extreme that it broke Schlanger’s nose and left him with severe facial bruising and other serious injuries. Disturbingly, when a security guard attempted to intervene to stop the beating, the teenager attacked the guard as well, demonstrating a complete lack of control and respect for authority.

Eyewitness footage quickly circulated online, showing the horrifying reality of a man old enough to be the attacker’s grandfather being pummeled over something as trivial as a seating dispute. The trauma was so profound that Schlanger later told media outlets he remembered very little of the actual beatdown, his brain having blocked out the memory of those moments of pure brutality.

The Unsung Hero Who Dared to Intervene

Amidst the chaos and the sickening sight of bystanders merely pulling out their phones to record, one man chose to act. Antonio Claytor, a fellow concert attendee, described the horrific scene and the moment he realized he had to step in.

Claytor articulated his motivation with a powerful simplicity that resonated across social media: “I have family members that are at that age. This isn’t right. Like, I have elders. Like, I have, I was raised with morals and values. Like, that’s, you can’t act like that, especially to our elders.” In an arena full of people, he was the only one brave enough to physically jump into the fray, putting himself at risk to pull the attacker off the elderly man. Claytor’s action was a vital moment of decency and street code—a testament to moral courage prevailing over instinctual fear, potentially preventing even more severe harm to Schlanger.

The 14-year-old attacker was eventually detained by the Kansas City Police Department, though he was initially released to a guardian pending investigation. The fact that the concert continued while a senior member of the venue staff was rushed to the hospital only compounded the unsettling atmosphere surrounding the tour.

New Orleans: A Rapper Carried to Safety

If the Kansas City incident highlighted the threat posed by unchecked fan aggression, the New Orleans stop demonstrated the level of pre-planned danger surrounding NBA YoungBoy himself.

Following a sold-out show at the Smoothie King Center, the rapper was spotted walking through the busy downtown areas of Canal and Bourbon Streets. The most crucial and baffling detail? He was walking with zero personal security or bodyguards. This casual stroll by one of the most controversial and highly-threatened figures in rap, through one of America’s busiest party districts, was a recipe for disaster.

Predictably, an enthusiastic mob of hundreds of fans quickly swarmed him. The situation rapidly escalated into a chaotic frenzy, marked by intense pushing and shoving that blocked off pathways. Though not violent in the traditional sense of a fight, the sheer, overwhelming nature of the crowd surge posed a deadly compression risk. The rapper looked visibly uncomfortable and hesitant as the situation spiraled out of control.

It was at this point that the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) staged a dramatic intervention. Officers physically surrounded, lifted, and carried NBA YoungBoy over the heads of the crowd to a waiting vehicle to ensure his safety. Multiple viral videos captured the cinematic moment of police literally hoisting the rapper above the mob, a scene straight out of an action movie.

What makes this incident particularly significant is that the police response was part of a pre-planned operation based on threat intelligence the NOPD had received. This was not a reactive measure but an anticipated emergency, raising the serious question of why the artist was left to rely entirely on law enforcement when his own security detail was “notably ghost.”

The Shadow of Astroworld and the Systemic Crisis

The chaos in New Orleans and the horrific violence in Kansas City are not isolated events; they are symptoms of a larger, systemic crisis that has plagued the M.A.S.A. Tour since its inception. Other tour stops have been marred by disaster:

Atlanta Cancellation: The show was scrapped after the rapper’s crew clashed with law enforcement over security protocols at State Farm Arena.
Los Angeles Evacuation: A concert had to be completely evacuated due to reports of gunfire, resulting in panic and a mass stampede.
Car Swarmings: Multiple incidents in Houston and Washington D.C. saw his vehicles completely ambushed and swarmed by fans after concerts.

The intensity of the risk is underscored by the unprecedented security deployment in New Orleans, which saw over 400 officers on duty for the concert—a massive, military-level operation compared to the few dozen personnel typically seen at most major shows.

This current climate of hyper-vigilance and extreme security deployments is a direct, albeit tragic, consequence of the Astroworld Festival Disaster on November 5, 2021. That catastrophe, which resulted in the deaths of 10 attendees due to compression asphyxiation during Travis Scott’s performance, fundamentally reshaped how the industry views crowd safety, especially at high-energy hip-hop events.

The parallels, while different in circumstance, are striking in their implications for systemic failure. Astroworld cited poor crowd control, oversold tickets, and inadequate planning as primary factors. The lessons learned—such as the Texas Astroworld Safety Act mandating real-time crowd monitoring—are now visibly being applied to NBA YoungBoy’s tour through the massive police presence and preemptive cancellations, acknowledging the acute danger that can arise from highly passionate, high-energy crowds. The industry is now fully aware that the enthusiasm of a cult-like fan base, when mixed with inadequate security, can turn a concert into a mass casualty event.

Why Hip-Hop? Context and Contributing Factors

While some statistics suggest that rap concerts are not disproportionately violent compared to other genres like EDM or rock, the truth is that hip-hop shows face a unique set of challenges that contribute to the current crisis:

Street Rivalries and Credible Threats: Unlike other genres, artist feuds in hip-hop often spill over into genuine, deadly street beefs involving gang affiliations. NBA YoungBoy’s ongoing conflicts with rivals, which have led to actual threats on his life, are the precise reason his Chicago show was canceled, proving that the threat of violence is real and external.
The Energy of the Crowd: Many artists, including NBA YoungBoy and Travis Scott, cultivate a high-energy “rager” culture that encourages intense crowd movement and chaos. While this is an artistic choice, it makes crowd control extremely challenging for venue staff, creating an environment where a minor dispute can instantly escalate, as seen in Kansas City.
Inadequate Preparation: Many venues and organizers still struggle to adequately prepare for the specific challenges and crowd dynamics of rap concerts in urban areas, leading to understaffing and poor planning that create dangerous chokeholds and conditions.
Media Scrutiny: Incidents at rap concerts often receive significantly more coverage and negative scrutiny than similar incidents at other music festivals, creating a feedback loop that unfairly associates the genre with unique violence.

The events of the M.A.S.A. Tour serve as an undeniable, shocking wake-up call. The horrific assault on Thomas Schlanger, the narrow police rescue of NBA YoungBoy, and the string of dangerous cancellations demand urgent accountability. The contrast between a musical celebration and the reality of a war zone is no longer ignorable. The challenge now lies not just in containing the chaos, but in addressing the systemic failures that place innocent workers, passionate fans, and the artists themselves in mortal danger.