After authorities connected the deaths of two 13-year-old boys to a Lil Baby music video filming last year, the rapper and his legal team have spoken out.
In a message posted to his Instagram Stories, Lil Baby rejected the connection and expressed gratitude to his supporters. “Thanks for all the concerns, please don’t be misinformed by fake news!!” he wrote. “I’m overly good.”
On Wednesday, Feb. 26, the Atlanta Police Department hosted a press conference announcing seven arrests linked to the deaths of two 13-year-old boys, Jakody Davis and Lamon Freeman. The pair were killed at a birthday celebration in July 2024, with police suggesting that Lil Baby’s music video shoot two months earlier was connected to their deaths. The rapper’s legal team called these claims “complete and total nonsense.”
“To say that he couldn’t shoot a music video in his hometown, a place that he loves and has continued to uplift, is disgraceful,” Lil Baby’s lawyers, Drew Findling and Marissa Goldberg, told TMZ. “Even more, the location for a major music video shoot is a decision made by a professional team and is not a decision made by any individual.” They insisted he had “absolutely no involvement” in the shooting, and blasted the police department for being “unprofessional, unethical, and shameful.”
While police didn’t directly name Lil Baby during the press conference, the arrest warrants for the seven suspects mentioned the music video Lil Baby filmed in northwest Atlanta in May 2024. The shooting of the two teens was allegedly revenge from a rival gang for a shooting that happened during the music video production.
“Lamont Friedman was allowed to be a 13-year-old for 27 minutes before gang violence ultimately took his life. Gang violence that was orchestrated by adults,” stated Major Ralph Woolfolk during the press conference. “Cowardly acts of an Atlanta-based rapper that decided to go over into a rival gang stronghold and shoot a music video in a place that he knew he should not have been. In the subsequent days, we saw homicides and shootings and, ultimately, the deaths of two children as a result of his cowardly actions and you know who you are.”
Police promised to hold Lil Baby and those connected to the music video shoot accountable.
