Q&A: Lil Baby talks new album, Young Thug, rap lyrics.
Lil Baby is normally a man of few words outside of his music, but the Grammy winner has opened up in an interview with The Associated Press.
While Lil Baby’s new album blares loudly in the living room, the Atlanta-born rapper stands in the kitchen of his $20 million Bel Air home singing to his son, who dances along on FaceTime.
For Lil Baby, living in one of the most exclusive neighborhoods in the U.S. would have been unfathomable several years ago. He was released in 2016 after being incarcerated on a drug charge and had no intention of starting a rap career until Quality Control founders Kevin “Coach K” Lee and Pierre “Pee” Thomas saw tremendous potential.
I knew Baby had a hustler’s spirit,” Thomas says. “All he had to do was transfer his energy from whatever he was doing to the music. He’s got that hustler’s mentality of the first one getting up and last one going to sleep. He grinds nonstop. I just knew if he transferred all that energy, he was going to grind all the way to the top.”
Lil Baby, 27, initially wasn’t hard pressed to rap. But once he made it a priority, he rose to remarkable success. He won over listeners through his infectious singles like “Drip Too Hard,” “We Paid” and “Yes Indeed” with Drake. He’s worked with some of music’s best including Future, Nicki Minaj and Lil Wayne. Earlier this year, he won a Grammy in the best melodic rap performance category for Kanye West’s “Hurricane,” which also featured The Weeknd.
In a recent interview with The Associated Press, Lil Baby opened up about decriminalizing rap lyrics, his friends Young Thug and Gunna who are currently locked up in a RICO criminal case and his third studio album “It’s Only Me,” which releases Friday.
LIL BABY: When I look at everything I had to endure and the process, I think about when I was just sitting in a prison cell to now I’m living in a pad in California. I feel like anything can happen. Anything is possible. If you believe, you can achieve.
AP: When did you realize you was good with formulating words together?
LIL BABY: Language arts was one of my favorite classes. I could imagine and really write a story about whatever. It could be real or not real. From second to third grade, I always been into writing a good story. Once I got on Instagram, I started realizing that the caption was more important than the picture. Like if you got the right caption, it’ll go viral. The caption has to be hard as my picture.