Even before DaBaby made his ascent to stardom with the release of his 2019 debut studio album Baby on Baby, he had his fair share of controversies that have cast a shadow over his short-yet-successful career in music.
The earliest public incident surrounding DaBaby took place in 2018, when he was involved in a deadly shooting at a Walmart in Huntersville, N.C.; though the rapper was originally charged with murder, the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor for carrying a weapon as a judge ruled he had acted in self-defense. In the years since, the 30-year-old has infamously made headlines for careless comments and violent actions, which most recently earned him a lawsuit for allegedly getting into a now-viral altercation in a California bowling alley in February 20222, followed by an April 2022 shooting outside his Troutman, N.C., home leaving one injured, in which no charges will be filed.
The rapper (real name: Jonathan Kirk), for his part, appears unfazed by his string of legal issues and controversies. As he said during his 2019 Billboard cover interview: “At the end of the day, any legal situation that I got going on, I wasn’t in the wrong. And I’m the type of person, if I ain’t wrong, I’m gonna stand on that. I don’t lose no sleep at all with having sh– going on. I just let the work overpower the sh–.” (Read DaBaby’s full Billboard cover story here.)
Below, find a timeline of DaBaby’s biggest controversies, before his stardom and beyond.
