South Florida Sun-Sentinel (Sunday)
‘Whatever comes, I’ll take it’
Lil Baby is one of the most listened-to artists of 2020
If youwant to talk with LilBaby in the pandemicdarkened winter of 2020, you have to go through some formidable security.
Outside a recording studio on the southern edge ofHollywood, in the alley of a windowless concrete bunker of a building, a security guard in a black suit and earpiece first took a writer’s temperature behind a floor-to-ceiling wall of plexiglass. Guests signed a thickwaiver stating that they haven’t had
anyCOVID-19 symptoms, freeing the studio from liability if they catch the virus inside.
Handswere sanitized, masks proffered and an assistant briskly dragged newcomers through a hallway and parked them in an all-white, furniture-less roomwhere aHEPAair filterhummedat full speed. Members ofBaby’s team nervously flitted fromroom to room— a manager, a designer, a few repsworking with the rapper’s Quality Control label (thefirm that helped break Migos and CityGirls).
But once you got through it all, LilBabywas upbeat. Dressed in all-black Givenchy and intricately barbered braids, the
26-year-oldAtlanta-born Dominique Jones cracked in disbelief about the Gucci Mane/Young Jeezy battle onVerzuz the night before.
“Iwas texting a couple of people whilewewere watching it,” Baby said, recalling the moments where the two long-feuding hometownheroes in Atlanta seemed like they might jump across the stage and strangle one another. “I knew for sure somethingwas gonna go down.”
For 10 months, hip-hop, like every other genre, has been locked out of clubs, tours and festivals because of the pandemic. It’s fared especiallywell on livestreams and stream
ing services, though, and LilBaby is one of the most listened-to artists of this grim year. He’s had a fistful of hits since 2018 chart breakthroughs “Yes Indeed” with Drake and “DripTooHard” with Gunna (currently at more than 700 million streams on Spotify), and “MyTurn” topped the Billboard 200 album charts inMarch and then again in June. He’s nowclocked 20 billion plays across platforms and counting.
Baby’s hooky, introspective and deeply Southern hip-hop has become a defining sound of the year in lockdown. It’s riff-able enough for TikTok but layered with insight from inside prison and private jets alike.
He’s also up for a pair of Grammy nominations, for rap performance and rap song, each for “The Bigger Picture,” his searingly immediate track that became a protest hit
forAtlanta and theworld during the uprisings after George Floyd’s killing.
But it’s aweird feeling to be at the top of your career and locked inside like this, with everyone afraid to be together.
“That’s the bittersweet part about it,” Baby said. “I haven’t been able to take it all in because I haven’t gotten fruits ofmy labor yet. Hopefully, with the vaccine, stuff will be open next summer. My album’s strong enough to ride it out till the end, though. I almost feel like I got robbed, but I ain’t gonna stop. Everything happens for a reason.”
Baby’s Grammy nominations came for one big reason in particular. “The Bigger Picture” was, in a year of several uncompromising tracks about police and the failed justice system, a standout on its June release, justweeks after Floyd’s killing. “My Turn” and hismyriad past
mixtapes and records had always documented the tolls of injustice— “Honestly, if you’re a real fan and listen, you know ‘Bigger Picture’ is something I rap about all the time,” he said.
LilBaby had been immersed in the local scene sinceKevin “Coach K” Lee, the chief operating officer of Quality Control, noticed his potential as a 17-yearold sellingweed to artists at recording sessions. He’s already clocked two studio albums, six mixtapes, dozens of singles and scads of guest appearances after just four years as a full-time artist.
But “The Bigger Picture” captured something fans newand old needed to hear.
“I find it crazy the police’ll shoot you and knowthat you dead but still tell you to freeze,” he raps, in amournful but steadily intensifying cadence. “I seen what I seen, I guess
that mean hold him downif he say he can’t breathe.”
“It’s toomanymothers that’s grievin’,” he continues, surrounded by protesters in Black LivesMatter shirts in the song’smusic video. “They killin’ us for no reason/ Been goin’ on for too long to get even/ Throwus in cages like dogs and hyenas.”
Baby is fairly neutral about its Grammy prospects. The ambitious “My Turn” didn’t land an album of the year nomination, but “The Bigger Picture” is in strong contention alongside tracks fromRoddy Ricch, DaBaby andMegan Thee Stallion, featuring Beyoncé. “Whatever comes, I’ll take it,” Baby said. “If I do win, then I’ll have to go get 10 more Grammys.”
Pierre “Pee” Thomas, chief executive of Quality Control, knew right away that the songwasmuch more than just a hit for the fast-ascendant rapper.
“LilBaby dealt with the feelings pouring out of him theway he knows — hewrote rawand real,” Thomas said in an email. “There have been very few artists in music’s history whocan speak a truth that a nation is feeling and help accelerate societal shifts. In his authenticity, and with thosewords, Baby became one of them.”
Baby also has more personal reasons than many to be hitting the streets demanding reform. In 2016, the rapper finished a two-year prison stint for a spate of gun and drug charges. The experience changed him inways he’s still reckoning with— in part inspiring his devotion to rap, but also instilling a deep cynicism about how money and connections grease the wheels of justice. He’s one of the most popular rappers on the planet. But in someways, in both songwriting and life, those prison gates are never that distant.
“If I didn’t go through all that, Iwouldn’t be able to speak on it like this,” Baby said. “I’ve got brothers in jail for life without parole. It’s part ofmy life, andwe talk on a daily basis. I’ve got six, seven people with lawyers I retain for them. That’s daily onmy brain, so it’s easy to speak on the subject when I get in the booth. I knowhowthey feel.”
LilBaby, perhaps more than any other artist this year, will emerge fromthe chaos of 2020 as anew superstar. He’s still recording and writing at a fast clip, even if the process is a little weirder nowthan it used to be.
But whenever the pandemic subsides, Lil Baby willwalk out of his house into a level of stardomhe hasn’t seen in person yet.
“I created a different wave since all this,” he said. “I did some ofmy biggest songs since the pandemic. But I’ve never got to perform them.”