Last summer, DaBaby sabotaged his career. The rapper stirred launched into a bizarre rant on stage at Miami’s Rolling Loud festival, targeting the LGBTQ community and those with HIV/AIDS. As a result, he was dropped from a number of festivals. He eventually sat down with nine organizations, including GLAAD and the Black AIDS Institute, to apologize for his actions. However, talking appears to be all that DaBaby did.
via: Radar Online
“If you didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS, or any of them deadly STDs that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cellphone lighter up,” the 29-year-old instructed the crowd. “Ladies, if your pussy smell like water, put your cellphone lighter up. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up.” (To make matters worse, DaBaby was flanked by Tory Lanez, a blatant middle finger to Megan Thee Stallion, who’d just performed on the same stage and had a restraining order against Lanez over the time he allegedly shot her in the foot.)
Following a wave of backlash, DaBaby embarked on a halfhearted apology tour (his social media mea culpas have since been deleted) and met with a handful of HIV/AIDS awareness organizations back in August in the name of educating himself and repairing his image. But several of those organizations told The Daily Beast that DaBaby never made a financial contribution to them. Additionally, DaBaby failed to partner with any of the groups that he’d met with for World AIDS Day (Wednesday, Dec. 1), and many of the organizations say they never heard from DaBaby again.
Pavni Guharoy, a communications consultant for the Black AIDS Institute, told The Daily Beast that while they found the closed-door conversation with DaBaby in late August to be “productive” and he “received that learning gracefully,” nothing else came of the meeting.
“Since then, we have not received any outreach, partnership, or funding from DaBaby,” she said in an email. “The onus is now on him, if he chooses to, to convert his misinformation into allyship by supporting the work of the Black AIDS Institute and other people of color-led HIV organizations.”
On Aug. 31, nine organizations, including GLAAD and the Black AIDS Institute, released a joint statement that they had met with DaBaby to educate him and share their personal stories. In return, DaBaby “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.”
But three of the organizations that DaBaby sat down with told The Daily Beast that they have not heard from the rapper since, nor did he ever make any financial contributions to their respective groups.
The six other organizations, including GLAAD, Gilead COMPASS, National Minority AIDS Council (NMAC), Prevention Access Campaign, the Southern AIDS Coalition, and Transinclusive Group did not return The Daily Beast’s requests for comment. (Nor did DaBaby respond.)
Since then, DaBaby has returned to performing at festivals, including New York’s own version of Rolling Loud in October.
