Lil Baby seems poised to dominate the rest of the fall. With the release of his new album It’s Only Me this week, the Atlanta rap superstar has been making the rounds with promo ops, interviews, and performances. He’s also made a few nods on the album to situations with Quavo, Saweetie, and DJ Akademiks. Most recently, he hopped on Hot 97 with Funk Flex for his third freestyle on the show, and the growth between these performances has been astounding to see play out.
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The “Drip Too Hard” MC is at a point where he flips through his lyrical topics with the ease of flipping through a book, weaving together personal anecdotes, states of mind, material wealth, crew loyalty, relationship drama, and a slew of different ways to tell rappers he’s better than them. On this freestyle, he does exactly that while adapting smoothly to different flows, rhyme patterns, and verse rhythms. They are the skills that have garnered his album much praise, and that will likely propel the album to a #1 spot on the charts this week.
It’s no surprise Lil Baby kills his freestyles; it’s the namesake of one of his breakout songs. But the 27-year-old also knows that with such consistency can come a lot of tedium, so he makes his punchlines count as much as he can to provide more quality than quantity. The emphasis is on his rhymes and flows, but he includes a few cool lines in here. He raps about everyone in his circle running an M or better, there’s so much going on his phone that he doesn’t need to text, and asks Universal to re-route his checks.
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