T.I. is speaking out again following DaBaby’s hurtful comments at Rolling Loud Miami over the weekend.
“Everyone [is] up in arms and upset about what DaBaby said,” T.I. said in an Instagram Live video that was later posted to YouTube. “I understand people saying that they feel that it’s insensitive. I think you guys have to understand that onstage, that’s not the place that rappers go to be sensitive and soothe everybody’s feelings. It’s a place to go to have a good time.”
He went on, “Why do words cause such a visceral reaction that will lead to someone trying to attack, villainize, demonize, crucify [and] condemn? That sh– is like, now you bullying. We all stood up on behalf of gays and lesbians and people in the gay community because we thought it was some bullsh– for y’all to have to be bullied. … But I don’t think any of us did that to feel like you would now have the authority to come and bully us.”
He later added, “You don’t get to condemn people just because they think differently than you. That’s not equality. That’s not justice and that’s not hip-hop, just being honest.”
Speaking further on hip-hop culture, T.I. said, “There have been enormous considerations within the culture, within the community of hip-hop. Enormous considerations, man, for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters because we feel they are also one of us. You dig? But we don’t feel that same way in return.”
“It took you a while to accept the difference in yourself to where you could share it with the world,” T.I. added. “So if it took you that time to accept yourself, how long do you think it will take us to accept you? You gotta give us some time too.”
T.I.’s comments come after DaBaby was heard onstage during his Sunday performance at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens, Fla., saying, “If you didn’t show up today with HIV, AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put your cellphone lighter up! Ladies, if your p—y smell like water, put your cellphone lighter up! Fellas, if you ain’t sucking d— in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up.”
On Monday, after several social media users criticized the footage, DaBaby posted a 19-segment Instagram Story saying that individuals who did not pay to attend the event should not say anything regarding his comments. He claimed that he made a “call to action” and that “all the lights went on” after he told fans to display their cellphone lights, because even his “gay fans don’t got f—ing AIDS, stupid a– n—as. They don’t got AIDS. My gay fans, they take care of themselves. They ain’t no nasty gay n—as. See what I’m saying? They ain’t no junkies in the street. The hell you talking about, n—as? Then I said if you ain’t sucking di– in the parking lot, put your cellphone lighter up. You know what my gay fans did? Put that motherf—ing light up, n—a, ’cause my gay fans ain’t going for that. They got class. They ain’t sucking no di– in no parking lot. N—a, you gotta get a room. A good one, five-star hotel. Even my gay fans got standards.”
The following day, DaBaby tweeted, “Anybody who done ever been effected by AIDS/HIV y’all got the right to be upset, what I said was insensitive even though I have no intentions on offending anybody. So my apologies. But the LGBT community… I ain’t trippin on y’all, do you. Y’all business is y’all business.”
GLAAD has since issued a statement addressing the controversy. “The rhetoric that DaBaby used is inaccurate, hurtful, and harmful to the LGBTQ community and the estimated 1.2 million Americans living with HIV,” DaShawn Usher, GLAAD’s associate director of communities of color said in a statement on Wednesday (July 28). “It is critical that DaBaby and his fans learn that people living with HIV today, when on effective treatment, lead long and healthy lives and cannot transmit HIV.”
Watch T.I.’s latest response below:
