Multi-instrumentalist and composer Morris “Mo” Pleasure was attacked by a 25-year-old local at a nightclub in Aberystwyth, Wales, police say. The attack happened on April 3, while Pleasure was passing through a line to enter the club around 2 a.m. That’s when Hefin Parker allegedly began lobbying “every racist slur under the sun” at the Earth, Wind and Fire member before slapping him on the head, according to Pleasure’s wife, Kedma Macias. Police have classified the attack as a hate crime, and Parker is due to appear in court for the incident on Wednesday. Pleasure, who moved to Aberystwyth a couple of years ago with Macias to start a family, called the experience “deeply upsetting,” though he noted that the people of the seaside town’s support for him throughout this incident “has been overwhelming,” he told the Daily Mail. “My wife and I have a little girl so we feel we have a responsibility to call out racism when we see and hear it,” Pleasure told the outlet, “with the hope that our daughter doesn’t have to come across this type of abuse in her life.”
