Three More Festivals Drop DaBaby, Bringing Total to 7, After Homophobic Comments
Three more music festivals have dropped DaBaby from their lineups Tuesday after the rapper made homophobic comments during a performance on July 23.
The iHeartRadio Music Festival in Las Vegas, Austin City Limits (ACL) Music Festival and Atlanta's Music Midtown removed the rapper from their upcoming events within hours of each other. Lollapalooza in Chicago, Machester's Parklife Festival, the Governor's Ball in New York City and Las Vegas's Day N Vegas dropped DaBaby last week.
"DaBaby will no longer be performing at Austin City Limits Music Festival— lineup update coming soon," ACL announced on its social media accounts. Music Midtown wrote a nearly identical caption on an Instagram post showing the current lineup for the Atlanta festival.
iHeartRadio updated its website for the festival, removing DaBaby from the lineup. The radio company confirmed to Rolling Stone that the artist was officially dropped from the festival set to take place in September.
DaBaby, whose real name is Jonathan Kirk, made comments about HIV/AIDS and the LGBTQ+ community at the Rolling Loud music festival in Miami on July 23. He initially defended his comments saying people "twisted up" his words but has since issued an apology to the affected communities.
"If you didn't show up today with HIV, AIDS...any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that make you die in two, three weeks, put your cell phone light in the air," DaBaby said at the Miami concert.
"Ladies, if your p**** smell like water, put your cellphone light in the air. Fellas, if you ain't suck a n**** d*** in the parking lot, put your cellphone lights in the air. Keep it f****** real."
The 29-year-old rapper received immediate backlash from his statements when a clip of his speech was posted online. Celebrities including Elton John, Questlove, Demi Lovato, Amber Rose, Madonna and Dua Lipa—who made the hit song, "Levitating," with DaBaby—condemned him in the week following his set.
DaBaby was met with additional controversy when he took to Twitter to say he had "no intentions on offending anybody," and that "y'all digested that wrong." The tweets were later deleted.
One day after his Twitter apology, DaBaby posted a music video for a song called "Giving What It's Supposed to Give," which ended with the following message written in rainbow letters:
"My apologies for being me the same way you want the freedom to be you."
The latest festival cancelations come just 24 hours after DaBaby issued a second apology for his comments via Instagram. In the lengthy note, DaBaby asked for time to "grow, educate and learn" before social media can "demolish" him.
"I want to apologize to the LGBTQ+ community for the hurtful and triggering comments I made. Again, I apologize for my misinformed comments about HIV/AIDS and I know education on this is important. Love to all. God bless," DaBaby added.
