DaBaby is da biggest controversy in the music industry at the moment.
The rapper went on a homophobic rant at the Rolling Loud music festival in Miami over the weekend, specifically targeting people living with HIV. “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,” he said. “Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up!”
Following the unprovoked and widely offensive comments, DaBaby was dropped from clothing line BooHoo, which released a 100-piece collection with the rapper June, and several celebrities publicly condemned DaBaby’s rant. One of the first to do so was pop star Dua Lipa, who featured DaBaby on a remix of her hit 2020 song “Levitating.”
“I’m surprised and horrified at DaBaby’s comments,” she said in a post on Instagram Stories on Tuesday, which was reported by multiple outlets. “I really don’t recognize this as the person I worked with. I know my fans know where my heart lies and that I stand 100% with the LGBTQ community. We need to come together to fight the stigma and ignorance around HIV/AIDS.”
Lipa has not stated whether she plans to pull the DaBaby remix of “Levitating,” which currently sits at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100. The track featuring his guest verse is available on streaming services like Spotify.
On Wednesday, Elton John chimed in by issuing a five-part statement on Instagram through his namesake AIDS foundation, a nonprofit supporting HIV prevention, calling out the “misinformation” that characterized DaBaby’s remarks. “This fuels stigma and discrimination and is the opposite of what our world needs to fight the AIDS epidemic,” the singer said in a joint statement with husband David Furnish.
Among the inaccuracies in DaBaby’s rant is that HIV and AIDS are no longer death sentences thanks to advancements in medication. Moreover, a person with HIV who takes their prescribed medication can stay virally suppressed and undetectable thus untransmittable. (This is often referred to by the acronym U=U.)
To educate the public about what remains an ongoing global epidemic, John provided further information regarding the state of HIV, which affects more than 70 million around the globe. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Black queer men in the United States have a 50% lifetime risk of contracting HIV. By comparison, the average American has only a 1% risk of becoming positive.
