On Saturday evening outside Webster Hall in Manhattan, a young crowd buzzed expectantly amid a heavy police presence, including as many as 10 squad cars, while bouncers with security wands diligently patted down all those who entered for the sold-out hip-hop dance party known as HennyPalooza.

The event, which passed without major incident, was occurring under a fresh cloud of mistrust and controversy. Just days earlier, on Wednesday night a few blocks north, a shooting at Irving Plaza before a performance by the rapper T. I. left one dead and three others wounded. By the next morning, William J. Bratton, the police commissioner, had given radio interviews denouncing “the crazy world of these so-called rap artists who are basically thugs,” with music that he said celebrated violence, drugs and the degradation of women.

“Unfortunately,” he added, “that violence often times manifests itself during their performances.”

The shooting, Mr. Bratton’s bald comments and the news that the Brooklyn rapper Troy Ave had been charged in the melee reignited a decades-old debate about violence in hip-hop and whether some live shows were dangerous places.

This focus on hip-hop is outdated and amounts to a form of musical and racial profiling of black fans and artists, Mr. Bratton’s opponents say. Rap is now a huge and dominant professional industry, they say, pointing to megastars like Drake and Kendrick Lamar. And despite the headlines, they add, violent crime at rap concerts is rare.

The New York City Police Department said that it did not keep statistics about violence at rap or other concerts, and an official was not available to comment on the department’s policing of these events. But it has made its concerns known by warning music halls about certain acts, while maintaining a ubiquitous, and some would say, overwhelming presence at such events.

“Quite frankly, that stereotype is not as relevant today as it was 20 years ago,” at the height of the violent feud between Tupac Shakur and the Notorious B.I.G., said David Yorio, an owner of Citadel Security Agency, which has operated in New York since 1982 and works the concert and festival circuit.

But in a sign that hip-hop has not shaken its old reputation as an outlaw genre — and that safety remains a complex worry — the police are not the only ones forcing hip-hop promoters to amp up security.

Promoters and security companies working mainly in New York say that when booking concerts, many hip-hop acts receive extra scrutiny from music halls and insurers. Some artists and their entourages must undergo security checks that many musicians in other genres would not tolerate. And after warnings from the police, some music venues have canceled hip-hop concerts rather than deal with the headaches that can come with them. The overall effect, many promoters say, only adds to the already fraught relationship among fans, rap artists and law enforcement.

This renewed discussion over these policies is occurring just as summer begins and rap shows across the city and the country become more frequent.

On Sunday, the influential hip-hop and R&B station Hot 97 (WQHT-FM, 97.1) will host its annual Summer Jam in New Jersey, featuring acts including Future and Young Thug. That same night, Kanye West will headline Governors Ball on Randalls Island, a festival preceded by three affiliated rap shows scheduled this week at Irving Plaza.

As with other concerts in other genres, most of the security at these events will focus on personal safety. Across the country, with electronic music and hip-hop alike, “The majority of the issues we run into are people who are inebriated or borderline overdosing,” Mr. Yorio said. “It has much more to do with E.M.T.s and paramedics than breaking up fights.”

But there will also be measures aimed at preventing violence — whether a planned attack like the one at the Bataclan concert hall in Paris or a random gunfight.

“At Summer Jam, which is arguably the largest hip-hop festival in the world, every single fan goes through a metal detector, and the artists and crew are also frisked by state police,” said Carl Freed, a veteran concert producer whose company, Trevanna Entertainment, has worked on Summer Jam for more than two decades. “We take these precautions, but nothing is foolproof. You do as much as you can.”

Last year, tensions between the police and concertgoers marred Summer Jam, which featured performances by Mr. Lamar and Nicki Minaj. Fans upset about lines and ticket procedures clashed at the entrance with state police in riot gear; 61 people were arrested, up from 51 the previous year.

And in 2013, four people were shot during a concert featuring the Atlanta rapper Fat Trel at S.O.B.’s, a club in downtown Manhattan known for rap shows.

The shooting contributed to the club’s decision to hold fewer rap concerts. But the decision also “stems from pressure from the police,” said Jonas Leon, a talent buyer for S.O.B.’s. “We’d rather just not put on a show instead of having the police come and shut it down for the smallest reasons.”

Mr. Leon said that S.O.B.’s had also instituted a “heavy vetting system” for artists, which includes ranking risk factors on a scale of one to 10 before scheduling shows.

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Mr. Yorio of Citadel Security Agency said that his company would scour Google and social media to learn about performers before concerts. “If there’s a history of violence, then we would increase our numbers and would work to have a paid N.Y.P.D. detail on site,” he said.

Alex Damashek, an independent concert promoter whose company, Move Forward Music, works with Webster Hall, said that scrutiny, and the liability issues that come with it, can prevent hip-hop concerts from happening at all.

“You have to be very careful about how you describe your event on the insurance application,” he said. “Just say the word ‘hip-hop’ and the price is going to go up.”

In March, Webster Hall canceled its weekly rap event, House Party; Mr. Damashek cited the continuing “perceptions and tensions” between attendees, security and the police.

One House Party show in the summer of 2014 featured the up-and-coming Brooklyn rapper Bobby Shmurda, whose viral Internet fame was just beginning to crest. “We were shocked the N.Y.P.D. called the venue to give a heads up — ‘You might want to be careful with these guys,’” Mr. Damashek said.

While the show went off without incident, by December of that year Bobby Shmurda and members of his GS9 crew had been arrested on gang conspiracy charges. “They’re much more tapped into smaller shows that are going on than the average person would think,” Mr. Damashek said of the police. “In a sense, it may not be the worst thing in the world that they’re aware.”

But Mr. Damashek and others said that “people outside of the culture” might have trouble grasping the nuances of hip-hop. There are artists, he said, who might rap about the street but foster a safe, positive environment at shows. Other acts whose concerts may be more volatile might not project that in their music.

“It’s hard to discern the difference, so we’d rather just paint the whole thing with a broad brush,” he said.

Last summer, shows by the rapper Chief Keef, who had been linked to gang violence in Chicago and served time on gun charges, were canceled even though the rapper was to appear only digitally, via hologram. In public statements, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office deemed Chief Keef “an unacceptable role model,” whose spectral presence “posed a significant public safety risk.”

As with many rap concerts that are closely monitored by law enforcement, concern with Chief Keef’s shows may have centered less on the artist and more on the fans or opening acts.

“It’s always a local issue, someone from the neighborhood with a chip on their shoulder,” Mr. Leon of S.O.B.’s said.

Artists are often searched as well, raising questions about whether their pasts or personal issues are relevant in a professional setting.

“We put our strongest guys on the artist entrance,” Mr. Yorio said. “Those are the guys who show up late, they try to rush in and they don’t want to be searched.” That’s what may have happened at Irving Plaza, he added. (The events company Live Nation, which runs Irving Plaza and concert locations around the country, did not respond to requests for comment about its policies.)

When it comes to searching artists and their entourages, “It can be dicey,” said Mr. Damashek, the promoter. “Most of the time, it’s not because they’re carrying a weapon or drugs; they just don’t want to be profiled. They feel like they’re being targeted because they’re black kids and hip-hop artists.”

Last year, the ubiquitous Young Thug was scheduled to make a surprise appearance at an art event in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. But because he had recently been charged with drug and weapons possession after a raid of his Atlanta home, the venue insisted that additional off-duty police officers be hired for the event, said Diane Varnie, a concert promoter and publicist known as Shabazz.

The rapper and his management team declined to enter because of the intensity of the proposed search. “I wasn’t surprised he didn’t want to come in,” Ms. Varnie said. “I’ve attended regular parties and alternative music events, and they definitely don’t search you down like that.”

Separating an artist’s personal life, which may be problematic, from his or her professional life as a touring musician can be tricky and hard to parse. And it’s connected to the larger problem — separating the art of rap, which often depicts grim realities of city life, from the country’s issues with violence.

“It’s an American problem,” said Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York, contradicting his police commissioner. “It’s a much bigger problem than rap.”

All the same, rap continues to carry the weight of scrutiny. “Fans are now going to have to catch their favorite act at a strip club or a nightclub,” Ms. Varnie said, because the shooting at Irving Plaza will “make it way harder for actual rap shows to flourish.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3238317&forum_id=2#30589758)

The rapper and his management team declined to enter because of the intensity of the proposed search. “I wasn’t surprised he didn’t want to come in,” Ms. Varnie said. “I’ve attended regular parties and alternative music events, and they definitely don’t search you down like that.”

OH WHAT UNREASONABLE RACISTS!

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=3238317&forum_id=2#30590292)