DaBaby Pretends Not to Know Questlove After Drummer Slams His Homophobic Comments
DaBaby told Questlove he doesn’t know who he is in response to the Roots’ drummer’s criticism of the rapper’s homophobic comments and insensitive remarks about people with HIV/AIDS at Rolling Loud, and his subsequent doubling down.
On Wednesday night, July 28th, Questlove condemned DaBaby on Instagram, sharing the lineup he said he would’ve curated if asked to helm a contemporary version of the festival he chronicles in his new documentary Summer of Soul. DaBaby’s name, however, was crossed out.
“I’m not trine be all performative smurf & create a social flogging or start some clickbait headlines,” Questlove wrote. “That’s missing the point. But right is right & his actions are wrong. Somebody Gotta say it: Homophobia/Transphobia/Xenophobia/Misogyny/Racism — this should go w/o saying is morally wrong. & not that fake hiding behind religion holier than thou morally wrong. But ‘that was fucked up’ & wrong. I had to say something.”
Questlove continued, “[B]lack people already have a code about publicly criticizing so I’ll admit I was slow to do this because I mean he don’t know me from Adam. So this will prolly get marked as ‘old hater’ territory. But man…..that shit was not cool at all… Huey Newton wisely stated in the early Seventies that we as a people should NEVER go so low in life (with what we been through) that we start oppressing/terrorizing the next man in the way we been terrorized for centuries.”
As Questlove suspected in his own comment, DaBaby claimed to not know who Quest was in his own response on Instagram Stories Thursday, July 29th (while it was two years ago, and a lot has happened, it is notable that the Roots did back DaBaby up when he performed on The Tonight Show in October 2019). Sharing Questlove’s post, DaBaby wrote (via XXL), “I ain’t even tryna be funny when I say… I do not know who dis n—a is dawg & do not care about loosing [sic] you as a fan my boy lol… This superstar you was a fan of is stand up n—a, Yeen never seen one of these huh?”
Other artists have criticized DaBaby, including Madonna, Elton John, and Dua Lipa, with whom DaBaby collaborated on a remix of “Levitating.” DaBaby, however, appears to have brushed aside most concerns, even going so far as to make fun of the controversy in a self-directed music video for “Giving What It’s Supposed to Give.”
