The sun-drenched Tuesday, April 16, at Power 106 in Los Angeles gave me a sense of occasion. The studio was excited at the prospect of DaBaby’s visit, once a dominant force in the rap industry. However, stepping up to the mic for Justin Credible’s Freestyles segment, his entrance was greeted only with silence.
DaBaby had a meteoric rise in 2020. He even beat Drake in monthly Spotify listeners in May 2021. He was about to deliver a freestyle that would shock many. He revealed that his feature fee had been slashed in half, from the $300,000 he used to command in 2020 to a mere $150,000.
“Knocked a n***a out and hurt my hand, I think I hit him wrong/Just got sent $150,000 and did a song,” he raps. “Used to get $300,000 in 2020, but I’m shaking back/I could start a war with that little money, you n***as play, you whacked.”
DaBaby reveals amount of money he gets to do features has dropped from $300,000 to $150,000 🤑 PIC.TWITTER.COM/TWPSOCTAOP
— SAY CHEESE! 👄🧀 (@SaycheeseDGTL) APRIL 18, 2024
However, the rapper’s career decline began at Rolling Loud Miami in 2021, a week when he started making controversial remarks about HIV and AIDS. During that week, he was withdrawn as a performer from many festivals, which he claims caused him to lose millions of dollars.
After he received multiple meetings with HIV awareness organizations resulting from his controversial remarks at Rolling Loud Miami, DaBaby even joked about being “canceled” and “switching to R&B.” Lawsuits, beefs, and other dramas also occupied him during that period, and his music was hardly a topic.
After all, DaBaby’s 2023 single “Shake Sumn” showed signs of recovery. In addition, his LA Lakers freestyle indicates that the rapper is aware of the recent past and is ready to take steps toward the future. DaBaby has dominated the North Carolina Billboard chart, scoring two 2019 and 2020 No. 1 albums. The 2022 Baby on Baby 2 album only reached No. 34 on the Billboard 200, proving the controversies caused a decline in the rapper’s music wave.
DaBaby recently paid homage to his past comments and respected other industry artists during his LA Leakers freestyle. He took two songs to rap. The first was the beat for Future, which collaborated with Metro Boomin and Kendrick Lamar on “Like That.” The St. Louis rapper called the track to the beat of Sleepy Red and “Get It Sexyy,” his “favorite motherfucking rapper” now.
His self-awareness is far more comprehensive than just steps. He recently admitted to losing $200 million due to the controversy during his Club Shay Shay conversation. But the stronghold: he doesn’t feel sorry for it.
“I feel like that’s a blessing in disguise at this point in my life…I needed that season that I had to endure. I needed that.”
The story of DaBaby is one of the cautionary comings of time in the spotlight and the gift of a second chance. Has he learned anything from subsequent events? Does Djoubi desire to perceive him as he once was? Time will reveal everything to him. Notwithstanding, the story of DaBaby is not entirely over—whether it is the dawn or just the first warning hinting that will make astronomers and future observers know. Only time and how fans, his peers, and other collaborators judge him will answer his question.
