A little more than a week after rapper and show creator 50 Cent expressed on social media that he would take on somewhat of a mentorship role with rapper DaBaby, vowing to ‘teach him all the mistakes i made, so he can be better than me’, the North Carolina native found himself in a world of troubles. Last month, during his performance at Rolling Loud in Miami, Florida, the rapper randomly began shouting out misinformation about AIDS and HIV at the crowd — thrusting him into headlines for days to follow.
Though the backlash piled on and the “Suge” rapper faced numerous financial losses, including being dropped from several upcoming festivals such as KS 107.5 Summer Jam, Parklife, and iHeartRadio Music Festival, he received much support from his hip-hop peers.
Lil Boosie, Nick Cannon, T.I., who found themselves at the center of controversy at one point in their respective careers, with the latter reportedly currently under investigation for sexual harassment, all offered up their support and advice on how the 29-year-old should move forward.
Recently, Fif spoke about the scandal during an appearance on E’s “Nightly Pop.” However, the “Get Rich or Die Tryin'” emcee didn’t appear to be too worried about the status of his presumed mentee’s career in the near future. The actor also seemingly shed some light on DaBaby’s apology attempts and more.
“He is a really talented, special artist, right? And he just transitioned from being in that pool that everyone’s in as a rap artist,” the rapper stated. “Like, they didn’t notify him that he’s turning into a superstar.”
He continued, “There’s nobody that tells you, ‘Now, you’re being held to these standards,’ that are mainstream standards that you can’t say things and you can’t do these different things. He didn’t have a publicist involved, and this is why the response took so long. Even his apology, the first apology attempt at it, was what made it worse. You know what it is? When a person makes a general statement, ’cause he made a general statement on stage, he’s not directing that to any individual; but what happens is he’s still new, and he’s being attacked by individuals.”
The “Power” creator also revealed that entertainment icons such as Madonna, Elton John and the Root’s Questlove all reached out to the “ROCKSTAR” rapper in some capacity, stating that DaBaby was being “taken back by who specifically is saying this to him.” He added, “It’s tough for you to not assess them when you see them as royalty or important people and they personally are attacking you because they are saying something about DaBaby. He never said anything about any of them.”
Fif believes there’s still a chance for DaBaby to survive this career turbulence, citing that the rapper is “only two years into his career.”
“There’s no artist development. There’s no strong A&R in this, definitely no media training,” He added, “Remember they canceled Chris Brown like five or six times.”
