DaBaby recently told his fans that he felt that he was being blackballed within the entertainment industry. After learning that his LP, Baby On Baby 2, was on track to move 16,000 units during its first week, the North Carolina native hopped on Instagram to address the matter.
“No bad for da BlackBalled Baby,” he wrote on Instagram.
DaBaby was not alone in his feeling that he had been blackballed within the entertainment industry. Popular media personality DJ Akademiks recently went on a Twitter rant backing the rapper’s claims and alleging that Apple Music’s Ebro Darden played a part in DaBaby’s alleged blackballing.
“Da Baby last project in 2020 ‘Blame it on Baby’ sold 124K first week,” he tweeted.
“His new project after being blackballed by Ebro, Apple Music is scheduled to do less than 20K. Now yall understand my Ebro convo…. DSPs control who is hot and who is not. Fall out of favor with them.. UR DONE.”
While DJ Akademiks and DaBaby may be on the same page, a few popular entertainers and curators have refuted the rapper’s claims. Most notably, Russ dismissed the North Carolina native’s claims.
“No artist is blackballed unless they cut off your Wi-Fi, remove your social media accounts, and take your music off all the streaming platforms,” Russ said.
“You are not blackballed. If you are famous and can still tell your fans, ‘hey, I’m putting out music,’ then you’re not blackballed.”
Joining the conversation, Carl Chery of Spotify addressed the matter during a recent episode of Brackets with Brian “B. Dot” Miller on Complex.
“Before we get into our final four, I wanted to ask you about some of these recent claims from artists [about] being blackballed from DSPs. What are your thoughts on that?” Miller asked.
“First of all, shoutout to DaBaby and shoutout to Arnold. He’s the artist that’s really jumpstarted this conversation in the past week. Former Complex [host] DJ Akademiks is at the center of starting this narrative. Go to DaBaby’s profile page right now and watch his post with a screenshot of Rap Caviar. He was on the cover of it. Watch his post saying that he was on Rap Life. How are you blackballed if you’re on the cover or featured on the two biggest playlists in streaming? I’m going to leave it there,” Carl Chery replied.
