King of the Babies

How DaBaby went from performing in a diaper to becoming one of the best — and biggest — young stars in hip-hop

With two hit albums in 2019, DaBaby is one of the year’s biggest breakouts.

Since last year, DaBaby has released two hit albums, two mixtapes, 15 music videos, and more than 20 highprofile features, while coining one highly distinctive catchphrase (“Goin’ baby,” an amorphous term that means to do something well). If you ask him, it’s all part of his more-is-more (but never enough) strategy. “When you’ve got a sound that don’t sound like nobody else, and it’s brand-new, you’ve got to feed it to ’em,” DaBaby stresses. “You’ve got to force it on ’em.”

The sound in question is a precise, staccato, syllable-crushing flow that has cut through a rap landscape dominated for years by singsong melodies and Auto-Tune, making DaBaby one of 2019’s biggest new stars. The week following the release of DaBaby’s latest album, KIRK, 12 of the top 25 tracks on Rolling Stone’s Top 100 Songs chart are by DaBaby or feature his voice.

In just a few years, the North Carolina native, born Jonathan Lyndale Kirk, has gone from viral curiosity — he wore a diaper to market himself at 2017’s SXSW — to a rap traditionalist with a Ludacris- or Busta Rhymeslevel eye for comedic videos. (“Suge” features him dancing around in fake muscles in a goofy homage to Suge Knight.)

Yet fame has also brought its share of darker moments: DaBaby has been in the news for knocking out rival rappers on camera, and during an altercation in a North Carolina Walmart last November, he shot and killed a man. (DaBaby claimed self-defense and was eventually only charged with carrying a concealed weapon.) “I don’t really like fighting, man,” he says, though he seems to suggest it comes with his occupation. “I’m 27, I’ve probably been in more fights in five years as a rapper than I was in the first 22 years in my life.”

DaBaby’s work ethic is so intense that he barely had time to mourn when his father died unexpectedly in June, just as “Suge” was becoming a pop hit. DaBaby is adamant that the music is the best place for him to talk about his dad, an Army vet who fought in Afghanistan.

On KIRK, DaBaby’s celebration of his triumphant year is offset by grappling with his father’s passing on “Intro,” which topped the RS 100 in October. “I ain’t spoken [about the death] when it happened,” he says. “I put shit in the song. It’s more therapeutic than anything.”

Release date November 22nd

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