Perhaps an hour after we were supposed to meet for the first time, I got a phone call from Lil Baby's manager, Rashad, letting me know that Baby had just left the Benz dealership and was on his way to a video shoot. Could I meet him there instead? Lil Baby showed up to the shoot literally skrrrting into the warehouse parking lot in the Corvette—the dealership was still finalizing the paperwork on the white G-Wagon he'd just bought and would deliver it to the shoot when they were done. He made a beeline for Rashad, who palmed him a stack of cash for appearing in the video.“Baby too explicit for a write-up,” Lil Baby told me immediately, bouncing past and onto a new thought, engaging with his friends before circling back to continue his ribbing. His friends—who introduced themselves as Hotboy Nunk, Baby Gangsta, 4PFDT, Lil Tiger, and G-Five—piled onto this sentiment before personally writing their names in my notebook just in case the article did turn out to be worthwhile. Pictures, including the ones he posts on his own Instagram, often make Lil Baby out to be stolid, contemplating the middle distance with a flat expression on his face. He’s frequently in motion and constantly animated—good, with his broad smile and quick banter, at being the center of attention, and equally good, with a tighter smile, at keeping strangers at a remove."Coach used to always say, like, 'Lil Baby got that swag, he the definition of a real Atlanta dude.'" —Quality Control CEO Pee
“People tell me, 'This is the new Atlanta right here,'” Pee said. “I don't feel like it's been an artist that came and took the lane from Atlanta as far as, like, what's real. When I listen to Lil Baby, it put me in a mind of where it was with Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy and T.I. Back to the trap. It put me back in that space. Like he's the new version of that.”All of Lil Baby's exploits might make him look like a perfect rapper, but they wouldn't mean nearly as much if Lil Baby weren't also making incredible rap music. And yet, in just a year, Lil Baby has managed to end up with not only the career of someone far more experienced but also the technical ability. His music works within the expanded dimensions of vocal manipulation and melody Future and Young Thug injected into Atlanta trap over the last half decade, but his own style tends toward a nimble-tongued sing-song that naturally matches the quick patter of his conversation.“I owe it all to God, and I believe, you know, it was already in me,” he told me. “I just had to bring it out of me. It had to be. There's no way.” Still, practice was essential. He basically spent 2017 locked in the studio making music, and in a chronological tour through his mixtapes you can feel the slow grind of him improving.“When I listen to Lil Baby, it put me in a mind of where [Atlanta] was with Gucci Mane and Young Jeezy and T.I." says Quality Control CEO Pee. "Back to the trap."
Rap, like the music industry as a whole, is increasingly focused on all kinds of dumb shit that gets attention in this celebrity-obsessed, attention-addled moment. But it's not supposed to be about the clout, the tweets, or the viral gossip. It comes from something more grounded than that, and Lil Baby is a part of that tradition.“I don't really know the logistics of a Soundcloud rapper.” —Lil Baby
And sure enough, not only did Lil Baby rap about “selling nicks and dimes to the fiends at the West End Mall / came through in that brand new Hellcat I had 'em hatin' all,” but there we were, me and my accompanying photography crew, tearing after him through Atlanta as he led us to the West End Mall, revving the Corvette through rush hour, Atlanta United gameday traffic. He sped down back roads and through Morehouse's campus, zooming—literally zooming—a block or two at a time before some obstacle or sign slowed him down. At one point he made a roaring turn past a cop, leaving the officer looking down the road in consternation, speaking into his radio, baffled like he'd just been sent spinning in a Roadrunner cartoon.At the mall, Lil Baby sauntered in and headed for Lids to buy a new hat, an all-black Atlanta Braves fitted, size 7 5/8, all polite “yes ma'am”s to the saleswoman. Two little girls, no older than eight or nine, shyly filtered in, hoping to get a picture, and soon it came out that one of them had just had her phone stolen in the mall bathroom. Before I figured out what was going on, Lil Baby led the girls to a store around the corner that sold phone cases and asked if they sold phones. No luck. He walked back out into the hall and explained the situation to the girls. Then he told G-Five to pull out three hundreds, and he added two more from his own pocket, handing the girl $500 in cash for a new phone. He didn't stop to comment on this; he just did it. He did, as we headed for the opposite side door, stop for pictures with three more groups who asked. Everyone who didn't still pulled out their phone to take his picture."Most rappers won't even tell you a story," says the producer Quay Global. "They'll sit there and just say anything until the chorus comes back. Lil Baby gonna sit there and tell you something.”