OMC: Getting back to public perception of the festival, it often seems from the outside that you guys are held to a high standard and can be placed in "no-win" situations. For example, one of the criticisms leveled most often is that the music lineup isn't diverse and doesn't reflect the ethnic makeup of the city. Then, when you guys announce a Ludacris show at the Amphitheater, you're charged with being irresponsible and grilled about security concerns. What are your thoughts about that?

BB: With the Ludacris situation, what they were missing is he's doing a PG(-rated) show. And, all they talked about was Ludacris. They didn't talk about the rest of the package. Chris Brown is an up and coming R&B star. Ciara is an up and coming R&B show. T-Pain has got his own thing going. It's not a hard-core rap show. We wouldn't do a hard-core rap show here. I don't know why Charlie Sykes got on his throne and decided to talk about that.

We try to bring the best talent that's available for all the genres that are working during our time. You'll see here Ne-Yo here for the young, urban R&B kids, or Morris Day and the Time for the old-timers. Or, you'll see B.B. King for the blues fans. We try to do everything in all the genres.

When we're putting the lineup together, we sit back and say "We've got to have some country this day; we've got to have some urban this day; we've got to have some rock this day. Our sponsors will tell you. Harley-Davidson will tell you "We want everybody to buy Harleys. Briggs and Stratton will say "We want everybody to buy lawnmowers." We want people to come to our festival.

OMC: In a way, the debate about whether you guys reflect the city actually does a good job of shining a light on the way a lot of people in town deal with race issues.

DS: What people forget to mention is that Ludacris was here in 2004. Let's just leave it at this: that conversation, that debate will never go away. We're supposed to do it. We want to do it. When we do it, then you get criticized. It's just never going to go away. It's such an old, boring, out-of-date conversation.

We are a music festival. We are the World's Largest Music Festival. We have to provide every genre of music for nearly every musical taste out there. If we don't, we're not living up to our own responsibility. If you sign just the music that Bob Babisch likes to listen to, that's not the right thing to do. If you just sign bands that I like to listen to, that's not the right thing to do. This whole conversation, as it pertains to diversity is dated, non-factual and to us, something that just basically exists and it won't go away. It's just part of the business. For some reason, people like to talk about that. And they believe that it's an issue that inflames other people. For what reason? We have no idea.

The people that criticize like that, I will bet you a dollar to a donut that they are not coming to this festival anyway.

OMC: So, you're not overly concerned about security for that particular night?

DS: Ludacris was here in 2004 and there was not one incident. We shy away from shows that we think are going to be troublesome situations. Anything can happen on any given night. We hope that it doesn't happen on that particular night, because a lot of people will point to it. But, that would not be a fair analysis of what is going on.