We love Charlotte. A lot. We at the Biscuit try to represent our city everyday and champion all of the creative energy it has to offer whenever we can. We’d like to think that we are the #1 fans of Charlotte but there is one man who loves Charlotte so much, it puts us all to shame.

He’s the hottest rapper in the country right now and he takes every opportunity he has to show hometown pride for Charlotte. His name is Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, or as we and the rest of the music world call him, DaBaby.

Via DaBaby’s “BOP on Broadway” Music Video

Over the past 6 months, DaBaby has blown up the music charts with songs like “Suge,” “BOP,” and “VIBEZ.” He was featured in Post Malone’s “Enemies” and on remixes of Lizzo’s “Truth Hurts” and Lil Nas X’s “Panini.” He was even nominated for two awards in the upcoming GRAMMYs. He’s been everywhere this year, but there’s one place that’s always on his mind: Charlotte.

He does whatever he can to show off his city, whether it’s referencing the Queen City in his lyrics or wearing Hornets gear in his music videos. If you’re from Charlotte, you need to be listening to this guy. He’s helping put our city on the map and show that artists don’t have to come from LA or New York to be successful.

DaBaby has had a meteoric rise to fame this year and is slated to perform on Saturday Night Live tonight, December 7. Can we take a moment to appreciate that? A musician from Charlotte, North Carolina is performing on SNL. S-N-freaking-L. Take that Bank Town, we ARE creative here and it’s time for the rest of the country to see it.

As insane as playing on SNL is, it cost DaBaby something that he would probably say is even more special to him … the opportunity to perform a hometown concert for his Charlotte fans. On Thursday, December 5, DaBaby was scheduled to perform at Bojangles Colesium for Power 98 FM’s Winter Block Party, but he had an SNL promo video shoot the very same day.

Via Saturday Night Live

To make everything work he was going to fly to NYC, shoot the video for SNL, and immediately hop on a plane back to Charlotte to make the concert in time. Like most things in life, his day did not go according to plan.

After the video shoot, DaBaby made it to his plane but, due to unforeseen technical issues, it was unable to leave the runway. His team was unable to get another plane, so that meant DaBaby would miss the concert.

DaBaby, disappointed to not make the concert in person, did the next best thing. He FaceTimed into the concert to give his fans as much of a show as he could. The crew at Bonjagles projected DaBaby’s FaceTime onto the big screen at the venue so he could explain why he was missing the concert. He then promised a free concert in the future to everyone in attendance and to cap it all off, he went ahead and performed his songs over FaceTime while on a broken down jet.

He later released a heartfelt video on Instagram about missing the concert, titled “Dear, Charlotte.” (Warning: Explicit Language)

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by BABY JESUS (@dababy) on Dec 6, 2019 at 7:13am PST

Everyone in the crowd would’ve understood why he couldn’t make the concert, they would’ve been disappointed but they would understand. The airplane issues weren’t DaBaby’s fault. He could’ve simply sent out an apology to the fans in attendance but he decided to go above and beyond.

He didn’t have to FaceTime in and he definitely didn’t have to perform via phone while stranded on a tarmac in NYC, but he did. He did what he could to make disappointed fans back home a little happier, and we think that’s pretty special.

We are excited to watch DaBaby’s rise in the music world continue, especially since a rising tide lifts all boats. Hopefully, he can help pave the way for other musicians in Charlotte and turn the attention of the nation’s music community onto the Queen City. And we think he’s off to a pretty good start.