DaBaby Takes On 50 Cent As A Mentor After Feeling Iced Out Of The Music Industry

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 Being Criticized After Reprimanding Candy-Selling Kids Who Tried To ‘Finesse’ Him

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.”

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.

DaBaby Proclaims His Next Album Will Go No. 1 While Delivering A Harsh Shot To His Haters

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.

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.

DaBaby Gets His Feet Done At 2 In The Morning

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 […]

DaBaby Admits His Videos Were Inspired By Ludacris But Says The Comparison Is ‘Too Commonly Used’

Last week, DaBaby and Ludacris trended for the better part of a day when comedian Lil Duval compared the two, calling DaBaby “this generation’s Ludacris.” While fans on social media debated whether the two artists really were analogues of each other or not, DaBaby prepared for his overstuffed BET Awards performance and Ludacris went to space in the latest Fast & Furious film. Fortunately, Billboard was able to get ahold of DaBaby on the BET Awards red carpet and ask him about it, giving him an opportunity to set the record straight.

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 Billboard here and watch his BET Awards performance of “Ball If I Want To” here.

The Biggest Moments Of The 2021 BET Awards

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.

Megan Thee Stallion Walked Off The Stage Before DaBaby Arrived For Their BET Awards Performance

The 2021 BET Awards was a smooth sailing affair. The artists delivered great performances and many of the award winners arrived to accept their trophies and give touching acceptance speeches. However, for those who kept a close eye on their TVs during the award show, they might’ve noticed a slightly awkward onstage moment between Megan Thee Stallion and DaBaby.

The two rappers were set to perform “I Did It” with DJ Khaled and Lil Baby at the BET Awards, but after an argument broke out between them on social media, it was hard to imagine they’d take the stage together without their somehow settling their differences beforehand. With Megan leading the way on the song, the Houston rapper performed her verse and slyly exited staged right as Lil Baby rapped his verse. By the time DaBaby arrived to perform, Megan was nowhere to be found as Khaled, Baby, and DaBaby were left as a lone trio to bring the performance to a close.

Megan and DaBaby’s rift began after the latter retweeted a post on Twitter about him and Tory Lanez being cool because they “both shot somebody and don’t have to do no jail time.” DaBaby claimed the retweet was accidental, but Megan wasn’t buying his excuse. “Support me in private and publicly do something different…these industry men are very strange,” she said in one tweet. DaBaby replied, “You know like I know I ain’t no “industry” n****.” The two exchange a couple more tweets before unfollowing each other on the social media platform.

You can watch Megan walk off the stage during the performance in the video above.

Megan Thee Stallion is a Warner Music artist. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

DaBaby Does First-Ever ‘Ball If I Want To’ Live Set At BET Awards

North Carolina rapper DaBaby did much more than perform an anthem at the 2021 BET Awards. The hip-hop star finally came through with his first-ever live set of the newly released “Ball If I Want To” smash. DaBaby Does First-Ever ‘Ball If I Want To’ Set The Southern rap heavyweight blessed the packed crowd and […]

The post DaBaby Does First-Ever ‘Ball If I Want To’ Live Set At BET Awards appeared first on SOHH.com.