Nearly a month after saying he was committed to mentoring DaBaby, 50 Cent appears to be sticking by the North Carolina rapper’s side.
During an appearance on E!’s Nightly Pop, Fif revealed that he expects DaBaby to bounce back from the recent scandal brought on by his homophobic remarks last month.
“He is a really talented, special artist, right?” 50 Cent began. “And he just transitioned from being in that pool that everyone’s in as a Rap artist. Like, they didn’t notify him that he’s turning into a superstar.”
“There’s nobody that tells you, ‘Now, you’re held to these standards’ that are mainstream standards that you can’t say things and you can’t do these different things,” the hip-hop mogul continued. “He didn’t have a publicist involved and this is why the response took so long. Even his apology, the first apology attempt at it, was what made it worse. You know what it is? When a person makes a general statement, ‘cause he made a general statement on stage, he’s not directing that to any individual, but what happens is he’s still new and he’s being attacked by individuals.”
“He’s only two years into his career. There’s no artist development. There’s no strong A&R in this. There’s definitely no media training,” 50 Cent added, before admitting that he is confident that DaBaby can “bounce back” from the scandal: “Remember they tried to cancel Chris Brown five or six times.”
50’s comments arrive a little over two weeks after DaBaby’s homophobic remarks at Rolling Loud Miami.
“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,” DaBaby told attendees during his July 25th performance. “Ladies, if your p---- smell like water, put your cellphone lighter up. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d--- in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up.”
After defending his controversial comments in an Instagram video the following day, the 29-year-old rapper issued a soft apology on Twitter, writing, “Anybody who done ever been effected by AIDS/HIV, y’all got the right to be upset. What I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions on offending anybody. So my apologies. But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. Y’all business is y’all business.”
Despite his attempt at burying the hatchet, DaBaby was subsequently removed from several music festival lineups, including Lollapalooza, Governors Ball, and Day N Vegas.
Last Monday, he then released a second apology via a formal statement on Instagram. “I want to apologize for the hurtful and triggering comments I made,” he said. “Again, I apologize for the misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important.”
Several national LGBTQ and HIV-focused organizations last week sent an open letter to DaBaby, requesting a private meeting with the Charlotte rapper to educate him about HIV in the hopes that he could serve as a long-term advocate for the condition.
