As more fans, supporters, and peers of DaBaby weigh in on the homophobic comments he made during his Rolling Loud set, a new voice has joined the conversation to admonish the North Carolina rapper for his words: that of Lil Nas X‘s father Robert Stafford, who posted his response on Instagram. As Lil Nas X is one of the more prominent queer artists in entertainment today, it seems Mr. Stafford won’t remain silent on an issue that so closely pertains to his son.
Posting a photo of DaBaby posing with Lil Nas X at an awards show, he captioned the photo, “Bruh sit down you had your time.” Indeed, DaBaby has been one of the most popular and bestselling rappers of the last two and a half years, so his platform is massive — and that’s why the way he chose to use it was so irresponsible.
While DaBaby later defended himself on Instagram, saying, “What me and my fans do at the live show don’t concern you n****s on the internet,” the problem is that you can’t just say, “What I do for the live show is for the audience at the live show.” For one thing, the show was live-streamed across the internet for the world to see, and for another, DaBaby clearly doesn’t seem to be considering the effect that his words can have, whether intended and unintended.
When he says “Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot,” that’s anti-gay rhetoric that has been used to justify committing horrible acts of violence against queer people. When he says “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,” that further stigmatizes people who are living with STDs while also spreading misinformation that can put people at risk.
And when he tries to defend himself by saying “the fans at the show were okay with it,” he betrays a critical lack of understanding of cause and effect, makes unwarranted assumptions about who is in the crowd and how they feel about what he said, and discounts the feelings of anyone who tuned into the live-stream only to hear themselves denigrated by his attempt to hype the crowd.
Maybe someone close to him can pull him aside and explain all this, but from what we’ve seen that won’t happen. That’s a shame because it shouldn’t be on “n****s on the internet” with famous gay sons to teach a grown man how to behave with some basic human decency.