It’s been more than two years since DaBaby shot into the mainstream rap spotlight with his breakout single “Suge,” an effort that peaked at No. 7 on the Billboard singles chart in 2019. The North Carolina native would then go on to share two back-to-back chart-topping albums with 2019’s Kirk and 2020’s Blame It On Baby.
While some may be iffy about his music nowadays, there’s no denying the success the rapper has attained over the years. And during a recent interview with Complex, DaBaby reflected on his a few moments during come-up which included one time when he learned that Beyoncé was a fan of his music.
“I remember when Beyoncé walked up to me at Diddy crib and told me she was a fan of my music,” he said to Complex’s Speedy Morman. “Told me she loved what I’m doing. That was dope. I’m like, ‘OK, this Beyoncé, you get what I’m saying?’ Diddy too, that was dope too, he reached out to me…He hold me close to him when he reach out to me.”
During the interview, he also confirmed that fans can expect a new project in the near future. “Another single before the album,” he said before adding, “definitely a new album on the way!” The new single would follow last month’s “Red Light Green Light” and “Ball If I Want To” as well as January’s “Masterpiece.”
It seems like Charlotte rapper DaBaby has a pretty dope mentor and one of the most successful Black men in the entertainment biz. The rap heavyweight has let the world into his low-key close-knit relationship with none other than hip-hop heavyweight 50 Cent, who has vowed to keep him on the right path. DaBaby + […]
After securing a No. 1 album for his 2019 effort Kirk, DaBaby’s career has taken off. The rapper has gone on to earn multi-Platinum certifications and perform at awards shows like the 2021 BET Awards. But his fast track to fame has apparently left him seeking some advice. To get his questions answered, DaBaby sought wisdom from someone who he has looked up to his entire career: 50 Cent.
DaBaby recently got together with 50 to pick his brain about making a lasting impact in the music industry. 50 obliged, agreeing to take on DaBaby as a mentee and teach him a few tricks of the trade.
“Somebody I been studying for a MINUTE lent me a few hours of his time today,” DaBaby wrote in an Instagram post. “N****s so scared to let me in the room they f*cked around & let me end up in the room w/ @50cent BIG MISTAKE! Beyond grateful for the game. Couldn’t have come from a better source. Now watch me put this shit to use #BackToWork”
The post was noticed by 50, who said he hopes to mentor DaBaby to “be better” than him. “I lost Pop [Smoke] before he could get it, This one already got it and he listen,” he wrote. “I’m a teach him all the mistakes i made, so he can be better than me. THIS IS HIP HOP!”
DaBaby is going viral on Twitter again, but it’s not for new music or quirky memes this time. The Charlotte rapper, who was captured in a video over the weekend reprimanding a pair of candy-selling kids for overcharging while in New York for the ESPY Awards, has come under scrutiny for the video. While some are defending his actions, others think he took it too far, embarrassing the kids online and playing the miser, considering how much money he flaunts in his music.
Sharing the video to his Instagram Story Sunday, DaBaby apparently intended to teach the kids a lesson in fair business ethics after they tried to charge him $200 for a box of Gushers. The boys told the rapper that their rate was $2 for each individual bag of candy but DaBaby noted that the boxes only contained 34 bags, prompting a quick math tutorial. “What’s 34 multiplied by two, my boy?” he presses them. “It ain’t $200! It’s not even $100. It’s $68.”
However, it’s his next statement that has some fans up in arms against him. “You gotta use your head, you tried to play me,” he says after giving each kid just $2 in exchange for three bags of candy — $1 each for two bags of Gushers and $2 for one bag of Skittles. “I was gonna bless you anyway. You would have gotten the $200 but now you got $2. Y’all be good.”
so da baby will spend $1000 on hats from a white girl and won’t spend $200 with some black youth. ELECTRIC CHAIR. pic.twitter.com/iSHIHnV4Fg
Some fans on Twitter expressed their disappointment in DaBaby for putting the two youths on blast the way he did, admonishing him or being cheap. Others, meanwhile, frowned on the kids for trying to finesse the rapper because they thought he made more money (to be fair, that’s what like 99 percent of fashion designers and jewelers do when it comes to rappers but that’s their business). Check out the responses below.
Da Baby filmed a flight attendant to criticize her appearance so I hardly believe he’s ‘above’ other lowly antics
I just cried a lil bit for them boys man I really hope they don’t see themselves being humiliated on the internet like that. I wish there was a way we could raise some bread for them bc them babies ain’t deserve that. At all.
Why would you as a black man go and violate two black boys selling snacks on the street? You’re supposed to give them some change and tell them to keep the snacks so they can hold onto more inventory. Dababy is a fucking bozo I want the worst for him pic.twitter.com/HKVcbguLxb
Da Baby was tryna buy some candy and bless the youngins, once they saw who he was they tried to finesse and charge him $200 for a box of candy that probably doesn’t retail for $30 and even at $2 a piece doesn’t resell for over $100. He declined. Ain’t no story there.
Im a trick for children so I woulda been like “cmon on yall! We out for the day! Adventures with da baby!” Coulda changed their whole life in a few hours
That video of Da Baby is such loser shit to me cuz anyone from around the way know what it is. When I see kids in the parking lot, I just give them the money tbh. I dont even bother harassing them with 21 questions. I hate the idea of kids have to sell shit whether it’s to get by
Y’all defending Da Baby like that was y’all money too? Typing from a phone when you stressing about how you gon pay the bill on it when it comes pic.twitter.com/hsm72AnxFX
— Shop OuttaPocketThreadz (@LateBlmr_) July 13, 2021
For someone who delivered three albums in a matter of eighteen months, DaBaby is certainly taking his time with his upcoming fourth album. It’s been more than a year since the North Carolina native shared a project with fans, but it looks like all of that is going to change soon.
DaBaby dropped off a message for his haters & said his next album will definitely go #1! pic.twitter.com/Hhl2nzBSKX
The rapper took to his Instagram Story to share a very bold update on his upcoming album.
“This will be my third consecutive No. 1 album,” he said which means the project would join 2019’s Kirk and 2020’s Blame It On Baby as the chart-topping albums on his resume. That is, if his prediction is correct. Next, DaBaby took a moment to deliver a stern and harsh message to his haters.
“All you dirty ass dog d*ckriding, hating ass b*tches understand me, when this new one drop, I’ma politely let you motherfu*kers get right back on this d*ck,” he said while laughing. He added, “I’m the best at doing what I do…New album on the way, will be a No. 1 album.”
DaBaby’s message comes a month after he claimed rappers are “scared” to work with him because he’s “the best.” “Best mf rapper & I’m on ALLLAT shit these n****s LIE about,” he declared. “I’m him frfr. If a n**** ain’t tryna work with the real thang he SCARED. The best supposed to compete w/ the best These n****s just TALK like they like dat SHUUUUT UP.”
You can watch DaBaby’s bold proclamation in the video above.
There’s never slowing down or stopping how much attention DaBaby needs. The hip-hop star goes to his Instagram Story with some footage of himself getting his feet soaked while also touring a production set. It’s too early to understand what exactly is going on but you can tell DB’s working. While it looks like a […]
Although DaBaby didn’t outright reject the premise, he was careful to point out how limited — and limiting — it is. “I feel like that’s too commonly used,” he said. “I think people use that too lightly. I was inspired by Ludacris’ creativity with his music videos. [I was inspired] by a lot of people. Not only people like Ludacris but people like Nelly. I mean, everybody. I feel like as the generations unfolded, people from every era was inspired by somebody from the era before them. Even when it boils down to 50 Cent, Eminem, and Mystikal, everybody’s videos used to be crazy. Busta Rhymes’ videos used to be crazy [too]. So I definitely was inspired by Ludacris, Busta Rhymes, and several other artists with their music videos.”
DaBaby, who first broke out with the comedic video for his song “Walker Texas Ranger,” might be onto something there. If nothing else, he’s far from the first younger artist to take inspiration from his forebears; Uproxx even has a whole show about it. From Busta to Eminem to Missy, modern artists have been looking to many of the icons of days past to inspire their own standout visuals because if you’re going to take from anyone, you’ve got to take from the best.
Read DaBaby’s full interview with Billboardhere and watch his BET Awards performance of “Ball If I Want To” here.
The 2021 BET Awards were, as usual, full of surprises, with enough moments that lit up social media to forgive the at-times seemingly slapdash and slightly overlong production (going to commercial during performances should simply not be a thing, ever, especially in a show that ran almost four hours). Whether those moments prompted wig removals, like Jazmine Sullivan’s virtuoso vocal performance of “On It” with Ari Lennox, or roasting, like DaBaby’s bursting-at-the-seams, off-sync rendition of “Ball If I Want To,” BET put on a show worth talking about, pulling its fair share of online buzz even amid an NBA conference finals game with lots of dynamite moments of its own.
With so much chatter throughout the show, though, there will still a few moments that rose above the rest, causing more than just a stir. Instead, they felt more like culture-shifting occurrences, whose residual effects will ripple outward like waves in a pond when a stone breaks the surface. These may end up being the ones that inspire retrospectives as we look back on them as the inciting incidents for huge changes in the way things are. Here are the three biggest moments of the 2021 BET Awards.
Cardi B Announces Her Pregnancy
Joining Migos to perform their Culture III standouts “Straightenin‘” and “Type Sh*t,” Cardi B pulled another pregnancy reveal for the ages, walking out midway through the performance in a rhinestone-studded bodysuit with a sheer midriff to show off her belly. The crowd pop when she does says everything that needs to be said; Cardi is already helping to carve out a new status quo for mothers in entertainment, but adding another child to the mix makes things even more interesting. It’s one thing to be a working artist while pregnant, it’s another to keep working when you have a child, but it’s an another-other thing entirely to get pregnant again, keep working, and still outwork the dudes — including the one who helped make all these kids in the first place.
Lil Nas X Remembers The Times — And Makes Out With One Of His Dancers
When Lil Nas popped out in dazzling golden ancient Egypt-inspired regalia to perform “Montero,” it didn’t take long for Twitter to draw comparisons to Michael Jackson’s 1991 music video for “Remember The Times.” After all, that was the theme for Mike’s video, which despite being way before Nas’ time, is such a fixture of Black culture that I’m sure he’d been exposed to it about 100 times before he hit puberty. So when he broke out into the iconic choreography from that video with his dancers, a thrill of satisfaction shot through viewers’ timelines — then transformed when he called back to another legendary award show moment. In 2003, Madonna, Britney Spears, and Christina Aguilera made history with a same-sex kiss at the MTV VMAs, solidifying their status as queer icons. I imagine we’ll look back on Nas’ kiss with his dancer the same way, as a watershed moment of representation. Happy Pride!
Megan Thee Stallion Refuses(?) To Perform Alongside DaBaby
This one’s more of a developing situation, but viewers couldn’t help but note that despite their long string of collaborative hits together — including DJ Khaled’s “I Did It,” which they performed last night — Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby’s relationship seems to have strained to the point where at least one of them won’t share a stage with the other. While there could be any number of reasons why Meg slunk off stage after finishing her verse for “I Did It” without joining the group shot at the end (which included DaBaby, Lil Baby, Lil Durk, and HER), considering their recent social media spat, which resulted in Meg unfollowing DaBaby across platforms, it’s almost assured we haven’t seen the end of this saga. One or the other may soon be called upon to address the rather obvious moment — in which case, another round of reactions wouldn’t be out of the question.
Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.
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