DaBaby met on Tuesday with Black leaders from nine HIV organizations across the U.S. to discuss some of the rapper’s recent homophobic and ignorant remarks about HIV.
The virtual meeting followed an open letter sent to the 29-year-old rapper, who has faced sharp criticism for comments on HIV he made at a music festival in Miami late last month.
The remarks led the Grammy-nominated rapper to be cut off from high-profile music festivals across the country — such as Lollapalooza in Chicago, The Governors Ball in New York City, iHeartRadio Music Festival in Los Angeles — and to receive widespread backlash on social media, including a rebuke by chart-topper Dua Lipa, with whom he’d collaborated in a remix of her megahit “Levitating.”
On Aug. 4, an open letter signed by GLAAD, Black AIDS Institute, Southern AIDS Coalition, among other prominent HIV groups invited DaBaby to a “private, off-the-record” meeting to discuss his “inaccurate and harmful comments” at the Rolling Loud Festival in Miami.
“At a time when HIV continues to disproportionately impact Black Americans and queer and transgender people of color, a dialogue is critical. We must address the miseducation about HIV, expressed in your comments, and the impact it has on various communities,” the letter, which has received the support of 125 organizations, read in part.
Leaders of the nine organizations who participated in the meeting provide HIV education and direct services to people most impacted by HIV/AIDS, especially Black heterosexual men and women and LGBTQ communities across the southern United States, which account for the majority of new HIV cases.
The letter was “our way to extend him the same grace each of us would hope for,” those who attended the meeting said in a joint statement.
“Our goal was to ‘call him in instead of calling him out.’ We believed that if he connected with Black leaders living with HIV that a space for community building and healing could be created. We are encouraged he swiftly answered our call and joined us in a meaningful dialogue and a thoughtful, educational meeting,” they added.
According to attendees, the rapper seemed “genuinely engaged” during the meeting, when he also “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,” they said — though DaBaby had previously released different apologies on social media, and those were slammed as insincere by many on social media.
“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,” the activists said.
The “Rockstar” rapper acknowledged that he was unaware of many of the HIV facts presented during the meeting, facts that everybody should know, the group added — including the fact that HIV is preventable and when treated properly, can’t be transmitted.
“At a time when HIV continues to disproportionately impact Black communities, celebrities and influencers of all backgrounds have the power to defeat the stigma that fuels the epidemic. We must all do our part to make the public aware of medication that can prevent HIV and to get more people tested and treated. Together we can end this epidemic. 40 years is far too long. Stigma hurts; prevention, testing, and treatment work,” the activists said.
“DaBaby’s willingness to listen, learn, and grow can open the door to an entirely new generation of people to do the same,” Marnina Miller, a community outreach coordinator with the Southern AIDS Coalition, said in a statement after the meeting.
“Ending HIV stigma requires doing the hard work of changing hearts and minds, and often that begins with something as simple as starting a dialogue. We hope DaBaby will use his platform to educate his fans and help end the epidemic,” she added.
