Charlotte’s DaBaby at the Grammy Awards thanks team, says they ‘changed the rap game’
Charlotte rapper DaBaby didn’t take home a Grammy Sunday night but appeared on the red carpet smiling and as confident as ever.
He was nominated for Best Rap Song and Best Rap Performance for his hit “Suge.”
The night before, at a Grammy party the rapper hosted Saturday night in Beverly Hills, Calif., DaBaby recognized the team at film production company Reel Goats that directed and shot three videos that helped propel him in the music industry.
“The work we put in together changed the rap game FASHO!” DaBaby posted on Instagram.
He was referring to the team’s work on the triple-platinum-selling “Suge,” the platinum-selling “Bop” and gold-selling “Intro.”
DaBaby was nominated for the Grammy Awards in November, both for “Suge,” the song he released in March with a video filmed in a west Charlotte neighborhood. This year marked his first nomination for a Grammy.
On Thursday, UpRoxx magazine said DaBaby deserved to win the awards. The pop culture magazine called the 28-year-old artist “a transformative rap star .. who deserves to leave the Staples Centre on Sunday with gold in his backpack.”
On Sunday, Best Rap Performance went posthumously to Nipsey Hussle for “Racks in the Middle,” featuring artists Roddy Ricch and Hit-Boy.
Rapper J. Cole’s “Middle Child” had also been nominated. Cole grew up in Fayetteville and now lives in Raleigh.
J. Cole earned his first Grammy Sunday for a song he co-wrote and was featured on with 21 Savage called “A Lot.”
DaBaby’s rising popularity
DaBaby’s popularity built gradually, much like most other famous rappers, with mix tapes and videos on YouTube that drew millions of views.
His latest track, “BOP on Broadway,” has drawn nearly 148 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.
Amid critical acclaim, DaBaby has also made headlines for some run-ins with law enforcement.
On Jan. 2, DaBaby was arrested and jailed in Miami after a fight with a promoter over $10,000, The Charlotte Observer previously reported. DaBaby is accused of punching another man in the face. The rapper told officers he was not involved in any fight, according to a police report.
DaBaby also 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.
This story was originally published January 26, 2020 at 9:41 PM.