DaBaby Defends Himself In The Wake Of Assault Charges By Sharing Video Of The Victim Supposedly Using Racial Slurs

For someone who gets in a new altercation seemingly every other week, DaBaby is very concerned about his public perception. After being charged with felony battery over alleged attacking the owner of a home where the Charlotte rapper shot a music video, he wants to put an end to the online chatter about his character. Over the weekend, he posted a supposed video of the alleged victim, Gary Prager, using racial slurs as he paces in a driveway.

“Y’all keep believing these type of people & helping em assassinate my character,” DaBaby wrote. “Y’all might as well get a rope & help him hang my black ass on a tree.” The video, which he’d apparently previously posted to TikTok contained a caption and automated voiceover (y’all gotta stop using that feature, it sounds awful) reading, “On today’s episode of ‘Let’s Make DaBaby look like a bad person’ we have Gary Pragar a PROUD white supremacist lying to TMZ & LAPD. Not knowing that he’s caught on camera.”

I don’t know anything about what kind of a person DaBaby is, but as an editor, that caption makes my eye itch. Meanwhile, it’s probably too late for DaBaby to change most folks’ opinions; after all, his career as most of us know didn’t really get started until after he shot a man to death during an altercation at a Walmart. While the authorities agreed with his self-defense argument, his behavior since then hasn’t drastically improved. Since releasing his debut album under his current moniker (changed from Baby Jesus in late 2018), he’s been involved in no fewer than six separate incidents of assault and/or battery — most recently against his child’s mother’s brother at a bowling alley.

Then, of course, there was the incident that turned public opinion against him the most, when he made some homophobic-sounding remarks during his set at Rolling Loud Miami in July 2021. He’s since apologized and defended himself but has also lashed out at critics, making those apologies ring hollow. As a person, I think we can all understand it’s no fun to feel like the world is against you. But at this point, he certainly must recognize that if the whole world seems to be against you — you might the be problem, not the world.

And if that is Gary Prager in the video he posted, then sure, you can argue the guy had it coming. But unfortunately, there’s no law protecting the right to knock out someone’s tooth for being a bigot. Hopefully, DaBaby can figure out some better conflict resolution skills and let karma do the heavy lifting in the future.