It seems we’ve all been duped, bamboozled and hoodwinked when it comes to DaBaby’s remorseful statement to the LGBTQ community.
As previously reported by The Root, the “Masterpiece” rapper issued an apology on August 2 for the homophobic comments he made at this year’s Rolling Loud Miami. In the single, since-deleted Instagram post, DaBaby wrote:
“Social media moves so fast that people want to demolish you before you even have the opportunity to grow, educate and learn from your mistakes. As a man who had to make his own way from very difficult circumstances, having people I know publicly working against me— knowing what I needed was education on these topics and guidance—has been challenging. I appreciate the many people who came to me with kindness, reached out to me privately to offer wisdom, education and resources. That’s what I needed and it was received.”
He concluded, “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.”
Hmm. A totally different tune from his first “apology,” right? I mean we all know da publicist probably wrote it but, save for a few flaws—like the fact that this apology still puts the responsibility on others to educate him and that the statement basically reads like “damn, so I was wrong about what I said but y’all didn’t have to get mad about it though”—it’s a decent (read: PR-mandated) apology.
So why then, per Pitchfork, did DaBaby feel compelled to da-lete delete it? Were we all da-ceived? Was da apology really disingenuous after all? I’ll let you be the judge of that.
Seeing as how this move comes right on the heels of that open letter sent by over 10 HIV/AIDS organizations to the Billion Dollar Baby rapper, if an olive branch was what he was hoping to extend by initially making the statement—I regret to inform him that it’s unfortunately not “giving what it was supposed to give.”
DISCUSSION
Speak for yourself. Nobody who said what he said would then be remorseful of such a statement days later.