Read: How ‘Old Town Road’ transforms the listener But Lil Nas X has clearly set out to test the bounds of such progress, and we’re now seeing the results. Hip-hop-and popular music generally-has slowly become a more tolerant place than it was when, say, Snoop Dogg rose to fame while rapping the word fag repeatedly. Since then, he’s twirled and given lap dances to the devil in the video for his smash “Montero (Call Me by Your Name)” worn pink and danced in all-male shower scenes for his new single, “Industry Baby” and kissed guys at the BET Awards.
The young artist came out as gay in 2019 when his single “Old Town Road” was on its way to becoming the longest-running No.
It feels intuitive that DaBaby’s comments, or at least the defenses of them, are on some level pent-up reactions to Lil Nas X’s trajectory. In a music video released on Wednesday, it’s worth noting, DaBaby looks as naked as Lil Nas X did. Of particular concern to Boosie was Nas musing that he might re-create the nude scene from a recent music video onstage at the VMAs. said in an Instagram comment, “If Lil Nas X can kick his shit in peace … so should DaBaby” and added “#equality.” Another rapper, Boosie Badazz, defended DaBaby in an openly hateful rant that directed slurs, threats, and the label “disrespectful” toward Lil Nas X. Yet tellingly, the 22-year-old hitmaker has been drawn into the ensuing storm. But the reactions he’s kicked up, and some other recent developments in hip-hop, have outed bigots and underlined the cognitive dissonance they live with.ĭaBaby’s speech did not mention Lil Nas X, hip-hop’s new, openly gay superstar. He insists, too, that he’s not homophobic. He also tweeted that he knew his comments were insensitive to people with HIV and AIDS but that he’d meant no offense. On Instagram, DaBaby then made things worse by explaining that he had been trying to show that his gay fans “got class,” unlike the “nasty … junkies on the street” who get AIDS. The comments were nonsensical-no one dies of any STD in three weeks-and brought backlash from listeners, celebrities, and businesses.
Performing in Miami this past weekend, the rapper asked fans to raise their phones if they didn’t have AIDS or “any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks” and also weren’t “fellas … sucking dick in the parking lot.” In other words, a factor causing needless suffering is people like DaBaby, one of the hottest names in hip-hop. One big reason HIV/AIDS remains a deadly crisis despite the existence of lifesaving drugs is stigma: Fear of shame and ostracization discourages people from accessing testing, preventive measures, and treatment.