DaBaby Responds After Video Footage of Deadly 2018 Wal-Mart Shooting Goes Viral

Rapper DaToddler/DaInfant/DaTrash DaBaby has responded on Monday after video footage went viral over the weekend allegedly showing him as the aggressor in a 2018 shooting in Wal-Mart.

For context, four years ago, DaBaby a.k.a. Jonathan Lyndal Kirk, shot and killed 19-year-old Jaylin Craig in the popular shopping store in North Carolina. At the time, the rapper claimed it was in self-defense, a response that allowed him to skirt around murder charges, as HipHopDX notes.

However, thanks to an in-depth exclusive featuring interviews with Craig’s family, several people and agencies connected with the case and newly-surfaced video footage obtained and published by Rolling Stone on Sunday, that defense looks more faulty than originally thought.

Though it’s unclear what was said in the moments before Craig was shot, the footage clearly shows DaBaby throw the first punch at Craig’s friend, Henry Douglas—who was also present—and continue to fight him throughout different sections of the store. At one point, Craig appears to pull out a gun from his waist but puts it away and attempts instead to break up the fight. The trio go out of the frame and then DaBaby is later seen sliding onto the floor, gun in hand. He quickly gets up, fires a shot, then tucks the gun back into his pants as he angrily walks around.

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After the clip went viral, the “Rockstar” rapper took to social media to seemingly address what was shown.

“The niggas preying on me can’t fuck wit the people praying for me!,” the “Bop” rapper wrote on Twitter. He later reposted the infamous Tyrese crying video—in which the Fast & Furious star tearfully asked, “What more do you want from me?” back in 2017 during a trying custody battle—on both Twitter and Instagram, expounding on what he meant in a post to his IG stories:

“Like damn, bruh. Niggas done took $30 million from me, lie on me once a week, want my fine ass BM’s [baby mommas] to hate me, want me to lose fights I don’t start, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM MEEE?”

In the years since the shooting, the “Suge” rapper has referenced the shooting in a handful of songs, namely his 2020 hit “Rockstar” and the 2018 single “No Tears”—the latter of which was released four days after the deadly ordeal.

As Rolling Stone also notes, the family of Jaylin Craig has long believed their son was innocent and has been seeking justice ever since the fateful encounter.

“We never hid from nobody. We never [heard] from nobody. Y’all knew our names from a news clip. But nobody ever asked us what was Jaylin like. Nobody,” Craig’s mother, LaWanda Horsey, explained.

Craig’s father, Curtis Horsley added:

“You can’t even listen to the radio. I think about my son constantly. We all are going through the same stuff. Every time we talk about it, we think we are getting somewhere, and nobody is trying to help us. Every lawyer we talked to, they look into this case [and say] ‘OK, we are going to get back with you.’ We don’t hear nothing [back].”

Curtis later concluded, “In my eyes, I feel like [Jaylin] was murdered. And [Kirk] got away with it. Everything he [does] is pretty much the same thing. He’s assaulting people, he’s getting away with it. Every case that you look at, they’re dismissing it. Why is he getting off?”

“I don’t look at him as no DaBaby,” Horsley further explained. “I look at him like, ‘You’re Jonathan Kirk and you murdered Jaylin Craig.’”

To read the full report, head on over to rollingstone.com.