What on earth are you doing, T.I.?!
The Atlanta-based rapper is coming under fire this week after going out of his way to defend comments made by fellow rapper DaBaby about HIV-positive people and the LGBT community during the Rolling Loud Festival last weekend. And while DaBaby’s comments were ugly enough, at least he kind of came to his senses and apologized (but barely) for them. Judging by these new words from the Live Your Life rapper though, we can only hope one day he shows the same repentance and regret…
This new controversy reached a crescendo on Wednesday when T.I. took to Instagram Live to defend DaBaby.
In his remarks on that live streaming platform, the What You Know lyricist ripped into the LGBT community, accusing them of bullying the Dua Lipa collaborator in the first place for speaking his mind about HIV-related issues (yuck!), and then turning it into a larger issue while arguing rappers were actually the ones being bullied by the gay community!
No, seriously!
T.I. said (below):
“Everyone, you know, is up in arms and upset about what DaBaby said. And I understand people saying that they feel that it’s insensitive. I think you guys have to understand that on stage is not the place that rappers go to be sensitive and soothe everybody’s feelings. It’s the place to go to have a good time. I thought we kind of let our hair down and disqualified the B.S. Were supposed to not trip when we see white people singing n***a to sing along with a song, so how are we held to such a high standard of morality? Just being honest. It seemed like it was a safe place, and it’s all done in fun, you know what I mean? That’s what I thought.”
And he continued from there, adding:
“If that is the case, why do words cause such a visceral reaction that will lead to someone trying to attack, villainize, demonize, crucify, condemn? Like, that s**t is… Now you bullying. You know? We all stood up on behalf of gays and lesbians and people in the gay community because we thought it was some bull s**t for y’all to have to be bullied. But I don’t think any of us did that to feel like you would now have the authority to come and bully us.”
Um… wow! Is he serious with that?! It takes some really special kind of ignorance to believe that the LGBT community — long bullied in too many ways to even count — is the community bullying rappers?! Like, the artists too-often best known for their incredibly misogynistic and anti-gay lyrics are complaining about being bullied by gay people?!
Come on…
On that same day, the ATL native spoke with comedian Zoie about DaBaby’s comments and doubled down in his reaction to them, at one point saying:
“I’m not trying to excuse anything. Every man is accountable for his own actions. I’m only merely attempting to explain how it could be tangled in some confusion, and trying to untangle it. I feel like any time we have moments like this, this is a teachable moment. It’s time for you guys to understand some things about us and for us to understand some things about you.”
The two went back and forth for more than 16 minutes, arguing about the roles and responsibilities celebrities have to the public and more, as you can see (below):
Reactions, Perezcious readers?!
Did T.I. totally miss the issue and play the victim in a completely inappropriate way or what?? Ugh!!!
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