For decades now, Washington DC has struggled to put itself on the hip hop map. For decades, the city's hip hop scene has fought to be counted alongside Philly's and New York's and Miami's and Atlanta's as a real player on the East Coast. For decades, DC has worked to prove that it's more than go go music and gunshots. And it's made incremental progress. But the massive brawl that spoiled the DMV Awards Saturday night probably won't help.

At about 9:45 p.m., witnesses say it turned ugly. During a program intermission, a fight errupted between two crews, quickly spiraling into a full-scale brawl in the hotel atrium. Witnesses said that between 20 and 60 people were involved in the altercation...by the time Arlington police had ordered the crowd home, five people had been sent to the hospital with injuries, including one hotel employee.

To be fair, every hip hop fan in DC is condemning the bullshit. And hey, people used to get stabbed at The Source Awards all the time, and that was during New York hip hop's "golden age." So let's remain positive! Shout out to the urrrea.

[WaPo]