DaBaby shot and killed a man at a North Carolina Walmart in November 2018, as Dave Chappelle reminded audiences during his Netflix special The Closer last year.
The Charlotte-bred rapper avoided a murder charge over the death of 19-year-old Jaylin Craig and claimed he acted in self-defense, but doubt was cast on that narrative on Sunday (April 24) when a never-before-seen video of the deadly scuffle surfaced online.
The surveillance footage shows DaBaby throwing the first punch at Craig’s friend, Henry Douglas. Craig can be seen pulling out a gun from his waistband but appears to begin to tuck it back in before attempting to break up the fight between Douglas and DaBaby.
The footage then cuts to a fellow shopper becoming startled and running away — presumably as the fatal gunshot was fired — as DaBaby reappears in frame holding a Glock.
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As the footage circulated online — dramatically changing the perception of the almost four-year-old incident — DaBaby took to social media late Sunday to address the matter. According to the 30-year-old rapper, this is just the latest attempt to assassinate his character.
“The n-ggas preying on me can’t fuck wit the people praying for me!” he tweeted.
DaBaby later posted a clip of Tyrese’s viral crying video amid his 2017 custody battle in which he bemoans, “Man, $13,000 a month. What more do you want more from me?! Oh my God!”
“No disrespect to my boy Tyrese man [crying face emoji] but what y’all n-ggas got goin on bruh??” he wrote in his Instagram caption. “#WhatMoreDoYouWANTfromMEEEEE ? Somebody behind the scenes on my ass ain’t it ?”
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In a follow-up Instagram Story, DaBaby continued to fight back against the footage while claiming he’s been robbed of $30 million.
“Like damn bruh,” he added. “N-ggas done took 30 million from me , lie on me once a week, want my fine ass BM’s to hate me , want me to lose fights I don’t start , WHAT MORE DO U WANT FROM MEEE?”
DaBaby isn’t the only one who believes the video leak was a targeted attack. Hot 97’s Funkmaster Flex echoed the rapper’s sentiment by offering a similar theory in his Instagram comments section.
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“You sell records and your stage show cranking…. You put on for you artist… some people/music insiders was getting threatened!” he wrote. “#JustMyOpinion.”
DaBaby has previously addressed the Walmart shooting on numerous occasions. On his 2020 hit “ROCKSTAR” he bragged, “My daughter a G, she saw me kill a n-gga in front of her before the age of two,” while on “No Tears” — which was released just days after Craig’s death — he rapped, “And any n-gga, touch me, catch a body like Boosie/Try me, I’m shootin’/No back and forth, just up it, I’m blowin.'”
The KIRK rapper doubled down on his self-defense claim on Instagram Live shortly after the shooting, saying, “Daughter could have got hit, son could have got hit [and] me. Lawyers … telling me not to say nothing … But two [people] walk down on you and your whole … family, threatening y’all, whip out [a gun] on y’all, let me see what y’all going to do.”
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Previously Unreleased Video Casts Doubt On DaBaby's Self-Defense Claim In 2018 Walmart Murder
However, Douglas and Craig’s family claim the altercation started when DaBaby became annoyed that the teenagers had recognized him and he demanded they take things outside for a fight. The case over Craig’s death was closed in June 2019, resulting in DaBaby being convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and sentenced to 12 months’ probation with a suspended jail sentence.
“I feel like [the police] just swept it up under the rug,” Craig’s mother, LaWanda Horsley, told Rolling Stone, who obtained the footage. “[DaBaby] knows what he did. I’m not doing this for no fame or anything, because at the end of the day, Jaylin Craig is gone.”
