If you had DaBaby not caring about HIV/AIDS organizations and flaking on his “education,” then congrats, like the rest of us, you saw right through his foolishness.
The Daily Beast reports, the rapper has failed to follow-up on outreach or partnerships with the organizations he met with back in August.
This all started with his homophobic, hateful comments while on stage at the Rolling Loud Festival on July 25. If you haven’t heard or read them, they are readily available throughout the Internet, and won’t be reprinted in this article.
Backlash was immediate, so the rapper embarked on a half-hearted apology tour. This included meetings with several HIV/AIDS charities and organizations to educate himself on why his comments were so awful.
Apparently, after those initial August meetings, he has moved on and had no further contact. Pavni Guharoy, a communications consultant for the Black AIDS Institute, said meeting with DaBaby was “productive,” but that was the end of any relationship.
“Since then, we have not received any outreach, partnership, or funding from DaBaby,” she wrote The Daily Beast in an email. “The onus is now on him, if he chooses to, to convert his misinformation into allyship by supporting the work of the Black AIDS Institute and other people of color-led HIV organizations.”
Black AIDS Institute is one of nine organizations DaBaby met with in August. Others included GLAAD, Gilead Sciences COMPASS Initiative Coordinating Centers, National Minority AIDS Council(NMAC), The Normal Anomaly Initiative, Positive Women’s Network-USA, Prevention Access Campaign (U=U), the Southern AIDS Coalition, and Transinclusive Group.
Following the Aug. 25 meeting they released a joint statement that read in part, “During our meeting, DaBaby was genuinely engaged, apologized for the inaccurate and hurtful comments he made about people living with HIV, and received our personal stories and the truth about HIV and its impact on Black and LGBTQ communities with deep respect. We appreciate that he openly and eagerly participated in this forum of Black people living with HIV, which provided him an opportunity to learn and to receive accurate information.”
However, it seems his apologies were all for show, as he has not even made any monetary donations.
“Though we felt the conversation was extremely powerful a couple months ago, we haven’t heard anything back as an organization since our conversation,” said Ian L. Haddock, founder and executive director of The Normal Anomaly Initiative.
Positive Women’s Network’s co-executive director Venita Ray also confirmed to The Daily Beast that the organization hadn’t heard from the rapper or received any charitable donations.
So now that he’s gotten back on stage and the world has seemingly moved on, DaBaby has no intention of keeping his word.
We could act surprised, but we’re not.
At. All.