NEW ORLEANS (CelebrityAccess) — A concert by the rapper DaBaby planned for New Orleans has been abruptly canceled, amid reports of slow ticket sales.
DaBaby was scheduled to perform at the 14,000-capacity Smoothie King Center on September 2nd but the show was pulled on Tuesday with Ticketmaster noting: “Unfortunately, the Event Organizer has had to cancel your event.”
According to NOLA.com, Ticketmaster’s website appeared to show that just a few hundred advanced tickets had been sold for the show, despite prices of $35 for some of the passes.
Local promoters Clear Bizness Entertainment and 70/30 suggested the show had merely been postponed and told NOLA.com that they were working on a revised event.
“We’re working on a future date and possibly additional performers,” Clear Bizness Entertainment’s Greg Pulver told NOLA.com, adding that DaBaby would “most likely” be included in any revised lineup.
Pulver did not comment on ticket sales but told NOLA.com that the show had been postponed for “a number of business reasons” and that the postponement was “in our best interests.”
However, DaBaby’s booking agency MAC had a different take, telling NOLA.com that the show was canceled by DaBaby’s team and that the local promoters were in breach of contract.
“DaBaby will be back in New Orleans very soon to make it up to his fans,” MAC’s Andrew Lieber told the newspaper.
Pulver refuted the claims of breach of contract, telling NOLA.com that “public information being released is false” and that they didn’t authorize anyone to announce the show had been canceled instead of postponed.
DaBaby, who first gained traction in 2015 with the release of his first mixtape, Nonfiction, landed a major recording contract with Interscope in 2018. Since then, he’s scored several hits, including “Rockstar” featuring Roddy Ricch, which peaked at #1 on multiple charts and went 5x platinum.
However, his career has been dogged by controversy as well. He faced multiple criminal charges in 2018 after fatally shooting a man in a Wal-Mart parking lot. He claimed he acted in self-defense and ultimately pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges of carrying a concealed weapon.
Last year, while performing at the Rolling Loud festival in Miami, he sparked controversy after making comments on stage after telling the audience, “[If] you didn’t show up today with HIV/AIDS, or any of them deadly sexually transmitted diseases that’ll make you die in two to three weeks, then put a cellphone light in the air. Ladies, if your pussy smell like water, put a cellphone light in the air. Fellas, if you ain’t sucking dick in the parking lot, put a cellphone light in the air.”
Following the predictable outrage on social media, he doubled down on controversy by responding that his gay fans of his do not have HIV/AIDS because they are not “nasty gay niggas or junkies,” according to TMZ.
Following his remarks, he lost several high-profile bookings, including the Governors Ball Music Festival, Parklife, Day In Vegas, Austin City Limits, iHeartRadio Music Festival, and Music Midtown.
