In one of the season’s most anticipated women’s college basketball matchups, LSU took on South Carolina in SC’s home court. Despite dominating in rebounds and shots, LSU couldn’t find the net and ended the game ten points behind the 2nd-seeded South Carolina. It was the team’s first loss of the season. As the Tigers headed off the court, heads hung in defeat, the South Carolina stadium DJ, T.O., rubbed salt in the open wound as they cued up the Camouflage track “Cut Friends.”
Camouflage, whose real name was Jason Akeil Johnson, was an American rapper who was killed in a shooting in Georgia in 2003, five months before the birth of his daughter, LSU guard Flau’Jae Johnson. “Cut Friends” was his most famous track. “I’ll take the L on the chin, but this [is] just nasty behavior,” Johnson said in a social media post following the game. “Nun funny bout that.”
DJ T.O. acknowledged Johnson’s dismay at her song choice, reposting Johnson’s Instagram story with a laughing emoji and the caption, “My bad.”
Following the incident, the University of South Carolina apologized to LSU and Johnson and suspended the DJ for one game. “Her actions were understandably upsetting to Flau’Jae Johnson and her family and disrespectful to the LSU program and fans,” the statement said. “Conference rivalries and passionate fan bases should only serve to enhance sports, not be used to target individual players personally. We regret that it came to that in our venue after a game that saw both teams capture the level of national attention that women’s basketball has earned.”
DJ T.O. issued a public apology following the school’s statement in which she said she had always been a fan of the song and Camouflage and never intended to play it as a taunt to Johnson. “[It was] never my intent to disrespect or offend anyone,” she said. “My job is to have fun and make sure other people have a good time … I’ve been playing [“Cut Friends”] for years, even at other games, but I shouldn’t have played it at yesterday’s game.”
