Lil Baby is catching some heat from fans after he shared a video of himself showing off a pair of diamond earrings.
On Monday (March 20), the Atlanta rap star took to his Instagram Story with a clip of himself with two diamond earrings hanging from his earlobes. Baby had a whole outfit to go with the earrings that included the new Nike Air Force 1 Low “Tiffany” colorway.
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The 4PF hitmaker made it a point to say his earrings were made of natural diamonds instead of those created in a lab, but fans weren’t too happy with the rapper’s flex.
“These ain’t lab diamonds; my shit out the mud. These real stones, you hear me?” Lil Baby bragged as he showed his earrings to the camera.
Fans were upset with Lil Baby showing off his “real stones” due to the process in which natural diamonds are mined, otherwise known as blood diamonds. They took to the comments section under Akademiks’ Instagram post and gave the rapper an earful.
“SMH this is NOT a FLEX! Rocking blood diamonds ain’t $hit to brag about,” one fan scolded, while another wrote: “Nah a armless kid in Sierra Leone got them out the mud.”
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Someone else sarcastically congratulated Lil Baby for “contributing to child slavery in blood diamond mines.”
These stones are mined in war zones, mostly by children in West Africa, and sold to finance conflicts, which profit warlords and diamond companies worldwide. Blood diamonds have been a hot topic in Hip Hop ever since rappers traded in their gold for much shinier diamond pieces during the “Bling Bling Era” in the late ‘90s.
In 2005, Kanye West helped bring attention to the use of blood diamonds when he dropped “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” off his second studio album, Late Registration.
The song found the Roc-A-Fella signee shining a light on the violent diamond trade, which he was inspired to learn about thanks to a conversation with Q-Tip. “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” peaked at No. 43 on the Billboard Hot 100 and won Best Rap Song at the 2006 Grammy Awards.
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The music video was also critically acclaimed for its depiction of children experiencing rough diamond mining in Sierra Leone. JAY-Z later hopped on the official remix and referenced the deaths of civilians in blood diamond mines and tension around consumerism.
Revisit “Diamonds From Sierra Leone” below:
