Charlotte rapper DaBaby detained in Miami for questioning in connection with robbery
Miami police detained Charlotte rapper DaBaby Thursday for questioning in connection with a robbery earlier in the day, according to a statement.
The Miami Police Department said DaBaby has not been arrested. The case is “open and ongoing” but could not confirm the rapper’s involvement in the robbery, police said.
The 28-year-old Grammy-nominated rapper, whose real name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, was in Miami Beach to perform with rappers Diddy and DJ Khaled on New Year’s Eve, NBC Miami reported.
This is DaBaby’s second incident with law enforcement in recent weeks.
On Dec. 23, Kirk was cited with a misdemeanor marijuana charge by Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police after he performed at Bojangles’ Coliseum. Following the arrest, the police department was accused of potential racial profiling.
Then, DaBaby told reporters that police officers “absolutely” targeted him and “unlawfully searched” his car once he finished performing, The Charlotte Observer previously reported.
“Black Excellence right here in our own city, (and) they hate it,” DaBaby tweeted the following day.
The incident prompted a CMPD Internal Affairs investigation and raised new concerns about harsher penalties for African Americans and minority residents — compared to their white counterparts — when it comes to marijuana arrests, the Observer reported.
Grammy nominations
DaBaby has seen his star rise in the music industry since January, when he signed with big-time label Interscope Records, the Observer previously reported.
In November he was nominated for Grammy Awards for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance. The nominations were for “Suge,” the song he released in March with a video filmed in a west Charlotte neighborhood.
His popularity built gradually before that, much like most other famous rappers, with mix tapes and videos on YouTube that drew millions of views, the Observer reported.
His latest track, “BOP on Broadway,” has drawn 13 million views since its Nov. 15 release, according to YouTube.
In June, he dazzled a national TV audience with a performance of “Suge” during the BET Awards in June.
Forbes magazine recently named DaBaby to its list of “inspiring and aspiring young movers and makers out to change the world.” The magazine assured readers that DaBaby was “no one-hit wonder” with the success of “Suge.”
Forbes cited DaBaby’s debut album, “Baby on Baby,” reaching No. 7 on the Billboard 200 this year and how, despite the rapper’s “legal troubles,” his follow-up “Kirk” in September “topped the album charts.”
Pop music critic Ken Tucker called the “humor-infused ‘Kirk’” among the year’s best hip-hop albums, according to NPR’s “Fresh Air” show.
DaBaby’s weapons charge
Despite his critical acclaim, DaBaby faced a weapons charge in connection to a fatal shooting in a North Carolina Walmart in November 2019. In June, a District Court judge found him guilty of a misdemeanor charge of carrying a concealed weapon, a DA’s office spokeswoman told The Charlotte Observer at the time. He was sentenced to a year of unsupervised probation.
The charge came in connection with the fatal shooting of 19-year-old Jalyn Domonique Craig of Charlotte during a fight in the Walmart on Bryton Town Center Drive in Huntersville on Nov. 5, 2018.
In an obscenity-laced video on YouTube two days after the shooting, DaBaby said he was in the store shopping with his 1- and 5-year-old children and their mother when someone pulled a gun “and tried to take my life,” the Observer previously reported.
“Daughter could have got hit, son could have got hit (and) me,” DaBaby said in the video. “Lawyers ... telling me not to say nothing... But two (people) walk down on you and your whole...family, threatening y’allya’ll, whip out (a gun) on y’allya’ll, let me see what y’allya’ll going to do.”
This story was originally published January 2, 2020 at 8:39 PM.