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.
