DaBaby was met with an onslaught of criticism in July when he told the Rolling Loud Miami crowd, “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 cell phone lighter up. Ladies, if your pussy smell like water, put your cellphone light in the air. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up.”
Consequently, he was dropped from festivals left and right, including Lollapalooza, the Governor’s Ball and Day ‘N Vegas.
However, DaBaby’s situation seemed to vastly improve when he met with several LGBTQ+ advocates in August and appeared genuinely sorry for his inflammatory comments.
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As a result, nine organizations — including GLAAD and the Black AIDS Institute — released a joint statement explaining they’d met with DaBaby to educate him and share their personal stories. DaBaby then apologized for the “inaccurate and hurtful comments he made about people living with HIV and received our personal stories and the truth about HIV and its impact on Black and LGBTQ communities with deep respect.”
Despite the promising optics, The Daily Beast reports DaBaby hasn’t made good on any of his promises to donate to their causes.
“The onus is now on him,” Black AIDS Institute consultant Pavni Guharoy said, “if he chooses to convert his misinformation into allyship by supporting the work of the Black AIDS Institute and other people of color-led HIV organizations.”
DaBaby apparently also failed to partner with any of the groups he’d met on World AIDS Day (December 1), and many of the organizations say they never heard from DaBaby again.
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The chart-topping rapper made the situation worse shortly after his comments at Rolling Loud Miami went viral.
“My gay fans, they take care of themselves,” he said in an Instagram Story at the time. “They ain’t no nasty gay n-ggas. See what I’m saying? They ain’t no junkies in the street. The hell you talking about, n-gga? Then I said if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cell phone lighter up. You know what my gay fans did? Put that mutahfuckin’ light up, n-gga, ‘cause my gay fans ain’t going for that. They got class. They ain’t sucking no dick in no parking lot.”
Although DaBaby did issue the apology, he eventually deleted it.Weeks later, Rolling Loud announced it would be backing his Live Show Killa Tour. According to a Rolling Loud rep, the festival explained it “supports second chances” and insisted he’d “grown and learned from his experience.”
