Rap Has A Baby Problem
There’s a baby problem in the rap world. No I’m not talking about unprotected sex resulting in unplanned pregnancies. That, thankfully, doesn’t happen anymore. No, the problem is way deeper. There are two Baby rappers. Lil Baby and DaBaby. Two of the hottest rappers in the game right now. Both infants.
Yesterday, DaBaby put out one of the hottest freestyles of the year. (NB: A freestyle in this context doesn’t mean he’s coming up with this off the top of his head, but rather it’s a random, unstructured verse.)
The verse is making big waves throughout the rap world this week. But it created a problem. How can we manage having two babies in our lives? We weren’t ready for two babies. We had the guest room converted into an androgynously painted, green-walled nursery with a hand-me-down bassinet, space budgeted purposely. Then we found out there’d be twins.
Let’s get into differentiating between the Babies. How do we tell who is who?
The first one to the mainstream was Lil Baby. You may remember him for his multi-layered lyrical masterpiece of poetry where he rapped “Wah, wah, wah, bitch I’m Lil Baby.” Even reading it brings a tear to my eye.
The song came out this summer and was dominant through the fall. His song with Gunna, “Drip Too Hard”, has gone platinum. He was the artist of the autumn, and was completely causing the world.
This guy is huge. As I told PFT Commentator what I was writing about, he said he saw Lil Baby land a helicopter at a strip club during Super Bowl week. That’s a two pronged crash course on how famous he is because A) PFT knows who he is and B) he’s landing helicopters at strip clubs.
He was aligned with Young Thug in 2016 after serving a little time and had a precipitous come up over the last couple years, scoring features with big stars like Quavo, Gucci Mane, Lil Yachty and Offset. Not bad for an infant.
This is what Lil Baby looks like.
Meanwhile, DaBaby? Completely different guy. I’ll prove it.
DaBaby is the one in the blue shirt. And while Lil Baby has been a household name for longer, DaBaby technically made his inaugural release first, with his premier mixtape coming out in January 2017 as opposed to Lil Baby’s first offering in April 2017.
DaBaby has also done a beautiful job leaning into the Baby theme of his name with his mixtapes. The names:
- Baby Talk
- Baby Talk 2
- Billion Dollar Baby
- Baby Talk 3
- Back On My Baby Jesus Shit
- Baby Talk 4
- Baby Talk 5
- Blank Blank
So, yeah, lest we forget he’s a baby, this kid reminds us every damn time. His album title? You guessed it. Baby On Baby.
He’s going Baby on Baby. And if you were wondering what that means, he told Rolling Stone earlier this month.
“Goin’ baby,” that’s the new wave. Rolling Stone, I like y’all articles, I like y’all magazine covers. Y’all be goin’ baby. Anything that you do [to] the best it could be done, you goin’ baby. If you hit the gym every day, you go hard, you got your body right, your body goes, you goin’ baby. Females, they goin’ baby. When she put that dress on with them heels and get her hair done, she goin’ baby. When I shoot these game-changing videos, when I chart on Billboard with my debut project with only a week of self-promotion, I’m goin’ baby. Anything that you do exceedingly well you goin’ baby.
Wow. Now I understand.
When trying to differentiate lyrically, DaBaby will typically be the one who is talking about his sales techniques, namely wholesaling and lending lines of credit for financing.
“I can lower the price on the P’s and you get ‘em from me if you buy more than five now, bitch”(Next Song)“You can’t afford it we can finance”(Today – Intro)“That’s a good number don’t be cheap, if you buy more than ten it’s gon decrease”(No Love)
An absolute wizard with the deals. He’s the Costco of rappers. So if you prefer financial advice, DaBaby might be your choice, while Lil Baby might be your druthers if you prefer infantile whining sounds. To each their own.
The only question is are they enemies? Or are tase two babies fit to be slapped in a daycare together. On DaBaby’s “Today Intro”, he raps “I think Lil Baby mad at me.” For the sake of babies everywhere, from the other rappers Baby, Weezy F. Baby and Friedy Baby, from the movie Boss Baby and from the whole of the Gerbers corporation, I pray that’s not the case.