DaBaby is one of the hottest rappers in the game.
But after making some wild comments
during his Rolling Loud performance,
major celebrities like Elton John and Questlove have called him out,
saying his actions are ignorant and homophobic.
Plus, the family of the man he killed in Walmart
is coming forward to say
that the official narrative of what went down that night
is completely false and the rapper is actually a violent killer.
Let’s take a closer look at what happened.
DaBaby is a rapper from Charlotte, North Carolina,
known for viral hits like Suge and Rockstar featuring Roddy Rich.
Ever since blowing up back in 2019,
DaBaby has quickly become one of the biggest rappers in the game and music in general.
But the bigger they are, the harder they fall
and now DaBaby is in some serious trouble
after a controversial Rolling Loud performance.
On July 25th, DaBaby took the stage to perform at Rolling Loud in Miami
and immediately had spectators going crazy on the internet.
First, he brought out Tory Lanez,
right after Megan Thee Stallion performed,
which many assumed was an intentional diss.
Most hip-hop fans will remember that Tory allegedly shot Megan in the foot last summer
after a pool party at Kylie Jenner’s house.
Rapper Tory Lanez has been charged with shooting
artist Megan Thee Stallion during an argument
Ever since Tory has been mostly blackballed in the industry.
But, last month, he dropped a track called SKAT
which features a guest feature from DaBaby,
who also appeared in the music video.
After the song dropped, a fan made a joke on Twitter saying
“I guess DaBaby and Tory Lanez cool now bc they both shot someone
and don’t have to do no jail time.”
The rapper even retweeted the joke,
although later denied doing it,
claiming that Twitter was on some Illuminati shit.
Megan then followed up with a tweet of her own saying
“support me in private and publicly do something different…
these industry men are very strange. This situation ain’t no damn “beef”
and I really wish people would stop downplaying it like it’s some internet shit for likes and retweets.”
DaBaby and Megan thee Stallion have both collaborated together several times
on tracks like Cry Baby and Cash Shit.
So, Megan clearly saw the collaboration with her alleged abuser as disrespect.
When DaBaby brought Tory Lanez out on stage just after she had performed,
many saw this as a direct diss to Megan.
Some are even claiming that Tory appearing on stage
violated the restraining order that she had against him.
But, that wasn’t even the most controversial part of the performance.
During the show, DaBaby told his fans
“If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDs or any
of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases
that’ll make you die in two to three weeks
then put your cellphone lighter up."
If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDs
any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases
that'll make you die in 2 or 3 weeks put your cell phone lighter up
"Ladies if your p**** smells like water put your cellphone light in the air.
Fellas if you ain’t sucking d*** in the parking lot put your cellphone lighter up”
Ladies if your p**** smell like water put your cellphone light in the air
Fellas, fellas if you ain't sucking d*** in the parking lot put your cellphone lighter up in the air
The backlash was pretty immediate and many fans were outraged by DaBaby’s actions,
claiming that he was targeting the LGBTQ community and spreading misinformation about HIV and AIDS.
The rapper did issue an apology after the performance,
but it only seemed to make things worse.
He started out by saying that the internet has no business
talking on what goes down at a live show because things get taken out of context.
He said that he wasn’t homophobic
and he had plenty of gay fans who loved his music.
But he continued to defend his comments
by saying that none of his gay fans have AIDS
because “they ain’t no nasty gay n****”.
cuz even my gay fans
don't go ******* AIDS
stupid *** ******.
They don't got AIDS
my gay fans
they take care of themself
they ain't going for their thing
they ain't no nasty gay ******
That obviously didn’t go over too well with the public
and the backlash continued to pile on.
Many celebrities joined in to criticize DaBaby’s on-stage rant
and distance themselves from the rapper.
Dua Lipa, who collaborated with DaBaby on the track Levitating back in October 2020,
said that she was horrified by the rapper’s rant and unfollowed him on social media.
After that fans noticed that DaBaby had liked several tweets
asking the artist whether she was going to pull their collaboration down from streaming services
which currently has close to 840 million streams on Spotify alone.
She did end up taking it off her personal playlist,
but it’s still available to stream.
Elton John also jumped into the discussion
and claimed he was shocked to hear the comments and disappointed
that the rapper was spreading misinformation about HIV and AIDs.
Madonna also jumped into the discussion,
calling him out for his homophobia and sexist comments about women.
The backlash even started to come from within the hip-hop community
when Questlove from the Roots posted about the rapper on IG.
He shared a post with a list of artists he wanted to perform at a contemporary version
of the Harlem Summer of Soul festival.
Da Baby’s name was mentioned on that list,
but it had now been scratched out.
Da Baby tried to play it off by saying that he didn’t care about losing Questlove as a fan,
because he didn’t know who he was.
But his defense didn’t go over as well as he probably expected
and fans on Twitter dragged the artist for being a famous rapper
that doesn’t know one of the most influential figures in hip hop.
Plus, they quickly uncovered a performance
DaBaby did on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon,
where the Roots play as a house band,
to prove that he was either lying or just being dumb.
But celebrities weren’t the only ones distancing themselves from DaBaby.
Clothing brand Boohoo man, who recently released a collaboration with the artist,
decided to cancel the collection and issued a statement about the decision.
If the backlash from his original apology wasn’t enough,
Da Baby also released a music video for the track
Giving What It’s Supposed to Give,
where he makes reference to the controversy.
At the end of the video,
he included a message in rainbow-colored font that read
“Don’t Fight Hate with Hate
My apologies for being me the same way you want the freedom to be you”
Although he was clearly trying to make an effort,
many took the statement as defending his own comments,
comparing being gay to feeling the need to make offensive comments on stage
which aren’t quite the same thing.
But not every celebrity came out against the rapper.
Others stepped in to defend his right to free speech,
although they probably weren’t exactly the people you want on your side for this kind of issue.
T.I. came to DaBaby’s defense in an IG Live post,
saying that the gay community was bullying the rapper,
and that the stage was supposed to be a safe space where artists could express themselves freely.
We all stood up on behalf of gays and lesians
and people in the gay community
because we thought it was some bull****
for y'all have to be bullied
but I don't think any of us did that
t-to
feel like
you would never have the authority
to come and bully us?
But, fans were quick to point out
that TI has also been accused of drugging and sexually assaulting women with his wife
The LAPD investigating the rapper T.I.
Two women, one in Los Angles and one in Las Vegas
accusing T.I. and his wife Tiny,
of drugging and sexually assaulting them
more than a decade ago
and once stated that he checks his teenage daughter’s hymen regularly
to be sure that she’s still a virgin.
So, he should probably keep his mouth shut about these kinds of issues
because he’s basically been canceled himself.
Another celebrity to come to DaBaby’s defense was Lil Boosie,
but he only made the situation that much worse.
Boosie questioned why Lil Nas X could get away with openly gay behavior,
while DaBaby was being criticized.
He said that the Old Town Road rapper wanted to perform naked for charity,
which offended him as a straight man.
You don't feel that disrespect?
goin-goin-goin
dance naked
You don't think that disrespect in front of
boys who tryna be straight?
it's totally disrespectful
He even took it a step too far
and called Lil Nas X a homophobic slur
and said that if he was at an award show
and saw the rapper performing naked,
he would drag his ass off stage.
If I'm at awards and he go up there naked
Imma drag his ass off stage and beat his ass
Obviously, this didn’t help DaBaby out too much
and only attracted negative attention toward Boosie
for dragging Lil Nas X into the conversation for no reason,
when it’s clearly a different situation.
Boosie has a history of making comments
that offend the LGBTQ community
He once called out Dwayne Wade
for letting his 12-year-old child get a sex change,
which didn't go over well.
Dwayne Wade you've gone too ******* far dog
that is a male
a 12 year old
at 12 they don't even know
they don't even know
what their next meal gonna be
they don't- they don't have **** figured out yet
He might meet a-a women, anything, at 16
and fall in love with her
Boosie is also currently fighting his own battles with cancel culture,
after having his Instagram disabled for posting nudity on his page.
Boosie claims that there wasn’t any nudity
in his posts and racism was behind the ban.
But Adam Mosseri, the CEO of Instagram
did a video where he explained that after a certain amount of strikes for content that is flagged as inappropriate,
they have to issue a ban and Boosie had too many strikes.
The only content we try to take off of instagram is
when there is safty concerns
and if you happen to take it down you don't lose your account or have it suspended
until you have a lot of strikes
and at some point we have to draw the line
and Boosie got a lot of strikes
So, it seems like Boosie should probably keep his mouth shut
about controversial topics if he wants to keep his IG account.
After TI and Boosie came to DaBaby’s defense,
the internet did its thing and started making jokes.
One Twitter user said that Boosie, Tory, DaBaby and T.I.
are quickly forming the 4 horsemen of rap hell,
and another joked that
Boosie must have Google alerts set up
so he never misses an opportunity
to hop in on some homophobic shit.
So clearly their defense didn’t help DaBaby’s case.
If that wasn’t enough,
all the controversy revealed new details in the case
where DaBaby shot and killed a man in a Walmart early in his career.
Even though Da Baby beat the charge for self-defense,
the victim’s family is now saying that the story put out to the public is not true
and that DaBaby is a cold-blooded killer.
In November 2018,
Da Baby was arrested in connection with the death of 19-year-old Jaylin Craig.
According to the rapper, he was out shopping for winter clothes with his daughter and baby mama
when Jaylin and another man approached him with a gun.
They tried to rob him, and a fight broke out,
which resulted in Jaylin getting shot and passing away.
The rapper was initially arrested, but after an investigation,
police ruled that he had acted in self-defense
and he was acquitted of the murder charge.
Recently, the family of the victim has come forward
to accuse the rapper of faking the robbery and killing Jaylin in cold blood.
A cousin of Jaylin Craig went on Twitter to dispute the official version of events,
stating that her cousin was not trying to rob the rapper,
but was just a fan looking for an autograph.
At that time, DaBaby hadn’t blown up on a national level,
but he was a popular local rapper in Charlotte.
She claims that Jaylin and his friend
had gone to Walmart after work to buy long John's
and were shocked to see one of their favorite local rappers there shopping.
They approached him to try to get his attention and this aggravated DaBaby.
It then led to a fight, where DaBaby punched Jaylin’s friend in the face.
Jaylin tried to break up the fight but ended up getting punched by the rapper’s baby mama.
DaBaby ended up firing a shot as Jaylin was running away, which hit him in the back.
She also alleges that one of the detectives working the case
told the family that the murder was never being investigated as a robbery gone bad.
But, despite the evidence, DaBaby was let off on self-defense.
The narrative adopted by the public
was that Jaylin tried to test DaBaby in front of his daughter
and got what he had coming to him.
It’s impossible to know what actually happened that night
and whether or not Jaylin was truly just star stuck
or saw a poppin’ local rapper and thought he could hit a lick.
Although it does seem pretty unlikely
that DaBaby would be let off on self-defense unless it was true.
He wasn’t even a huge mainstream artist at that point
and was still shopping at Walmart for baby clothes,
so it’s not like he could have used his connections to beat the case or pay off the police.
It seems much more likely
that if he had truly killed Jaylin in public,
that he would have been charged with murder.
Especially because there were likely witnesses and security cameras to verify what happened.
It seems more likely that Jaylin’s cousin didn’t really know about the life he was living.
Although anything is possible and maybe DaBaby was slick enough to fake a robbery
and then get off with self-defense.
The case has already been investigated and ruled a justifiable homicide,
so without any new evidence to prove her side of the story,
DaBaby won’t be facing any additional charges.
But it does make you wonder
whether the official narrative of what went down that night is really true,
or if the rapper just used it as a way to build hype for his music.
With all this controversy, it seems like DaBaby has really had enough
and issued a much more focused grouped analogy
after getting dropped from several festivals.
Da Baby was supposed to head- -line at Lollapalooza in Chicago,
but was dropped after representatives from the festivals
stated that the concert was founded on diversity, inclusivity, respect and love.
It was also announced that Da Baby was being dropped from the Day N Night Festival
and would be replaced by Roddy Rich.
Plus, he would no longer be performing at Governor’s Ball in New York.
DaBaby has been dropped from the lineup at the Governor's Ball
in response to statements he recently make on stage
about the LGTBQ community
Losing out on a brand deal or two isn’t going to hurt the rapper’s bottom line too much.
But live performances are one of the biggest sources of revenue for artists
and being banned from multiple festivals is definitely going to hurt his pockets.
So, DaBaby decided to issue a more clean-cut apology to his social media,
apologizing to the LBGTQ community for his hurtful and misinformed comments about HIV and AIDS.
The statement doesn’t really sound like the rapper
and was likely drafted by a PR team from his label.
But at least he’s recognized that he messed up
and that the LGBTQ community has a lot more power to damage his career than he probably thought.
Overall, the situation probably wouldn’t have blown up as much if
DaBaby just gave a sincere apology to begin with.
If he just acknowledged that his comments were stupid
and he just got caught in the heat of the moment,
he probably would have faced some backlash,
but it would have died down much quicker.
Instead, he tried to defend his statements,
which made his haters go twice as hard.
It seems like the rapper was just trying to make a bad joke
that didn’t land the way he thought it would.
He should have just admitted it and let it go,
but instead, he doubled down and now it’s costing him money and opportunities.
This most likely isn’t the end of DaBaby’s career
and he’ll bounce back eventually.
But when you’re at that superstar level,
you have to be careful what you say,
because if you get too comfortable,
you could end up losing everything you’ve built.
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