We just wrapped up College Beach weekend in Virginia Beach and it was abnormally quiet - especially in comparison to how it looked in 2019 at the Something in the Water Festival.
Last week, in an episode of The Pivot, Pusha T confirmed Something in the Water created by Virginia Beach native, Pharrell Williams, will move to Washington DC. The festival brought great revenue to the City of Virginia Beach, but then the Virginia Beac police shooting of Donovan Lynch, Pharrell Williams's cousin, occurred. Lynch was fatally shot by a Virginia Beach police officer on March 26 2021 at the Oceanfront, which seems counterproductive to Pharrell bringing Something in the Water to the area in the first place. In a statement, Pharrell says he brought the festival to the area "in an effort to ease racial tension, unify the region and bring some economic opportunities to the local business community."
In a letter to Virginia Beach Pharrell wrote, "I love my city," he wrote, "but for far too long it has been run by and with toxic energy. The toxic energy that changed the narrative several times around the homicide of my cousin, Donovan Lynch, a citizen of Virginia, is the same toxic energy that changed the narrative around the mass murder and senseless loss of life at Building Number 2…" when speaking about the killing of his cousin.
In the below video, Pusha T speaks on the fate of Something in the Water while the Mayor of Virginia Beach, Bobby Dyer, says he is working to bring the festival back to the area. “We’re going to prove that we are the city he believes in,” Dyer said in reference to Pharrell.