He did tell the masses to Blame It On Baby, and damned if the controversial North Carolina artist isn't witnessing the first-hand phenomenon of life imitating art. Following an unprompted and homophobic rant directed at HIV victims and gay men, DaBaby's found himself facing the biggest backlash of his career.
Though he denied any ill will toward the gay community, many -- including several prominent artists like Questlove and Elton John -- felt that the rapper was insincere. Fans seemed ready and willing to wash their hands of DaBaby entirely. His own collaborator Dua Lipa, with whom he made the smash hit "Levitating," was horrified by his conduct; in kind, he "liked" several shady tweets at her expense.
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Now, it would appear that Dua Lipa and her team are taking action to scrub DaBaby from "Levitating" history entirely, furthering the catastrophic (and ongoing) hit to his bag. Chart Data notes that DaBaby is no longer credited on "Levitating" on the Billboard airplay charts -- he is, however, still present on "Levitating" on the Hot 100 charts.
Uproxx came through with a detailed breakdown, citing a Billboard report highlighting the gradual decline the remix has experienced over the past few weeks. The publication cites a similar situation that occurred with Doja Cat and Nicki Minaj, with the latter being seemingly removed from the "Say So" remix on the charts. Billboard explained that as the original began driving more listener traffic than the remix, the change was made.
https://twitter.com/_/status/1424780146897133574
It seems as if Dua Lipa's team is looking to do damage control in an attempt to bring "Levitating" back up to its previous heights. The original, DaBaby-free version has been used as a replacement by many programmers, which likely attests for the loss of credit. But that's not to say DaBaby is being scrubbed from "Levitating" entirely. At this moment, he remains in the official music video and that is unlikely to change unless more drastic measures are taken.
Still, radio programmers are becoming increasingly wary of playing his music, and it wouldn't be surprising to see Dua's label do whatever they can to prevent further freefall. Dua Lipa isn't the only artist to distance herself from DaBaby. Kanye West recently pulled his remix of "Nah Nah Nah" from streaming platforms, which featured DaBaby in a prominent role.
Last we heard from the rapper, DaBaby opted to remain defiant.
