Lil Baby transitions from gritty Atlanta street rap to mainstream sound on ‘It’s Only Me’
To support student journalism and the content you love, become a member of The Daily Orange today.
Since 2018, Atlanta MC Lil Baby pushed himself to the top of the charts, ripening into one of the faces of Southern rap and the worldwide hip-hop industry. Now he is back with one of the most highly anticipated albums of 2022, “It’s Only Me.”
The release of “It’s Only Me” comes with a lot of pressure on Baby. Fans were intrigued to see if he would change his style — something that many think he has not done yet in his career, which has piled on excess criticism on him.
His last release, February 2020’s “My Turn,” amassed positive reviews, and with his newest release, he now looks to both cement himself as a mainstay among rap’s top talents and silence the critics who hold a grudge against the rapper’s unchanged sound.
Album Overview
Lil Baby’s “It’s Only Me,” released on Oct. 14, features 23 songs. Though it’s a lengthy tracklist, the album still manages to deliver strong verses from Baby and many big names in music like Future, Young Thug and Pooh Shiesty.
The cover of the album shows the rapper at four different stages of his life, as carved rock monuments on Mount Rushmore, with him sitting at the bottom of the mountain surrounded by goats. The cover unfolds with the name of the album “It’s Only Me,” possibly referring to fans naming their “Mount Rushmore of Rap,” but Lil Baby believes that it’s only him at the top and that he is the G.O.A.T.
The lead off single, “In A Minute” became an instant chart topper, debuting at number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was also a radio hit, as a sample from Ellie Goulding’s “Don’t Say a Word” providing him with the optimal platform to spit his bellowing flow that made him so popular.
His second single released before the project, “Heyy,” was somewhat of a boring radio hit/TikTok type song that looked to just bring attention to the album. But regardless, fans still streamed the song and generated hype for the full project.
The structure of the album is the same as a lot of past Lil Baby projects, including a medley or slower lyrical tracks, bass-boosted trap songs and laid back melodical hits scattered across the tracklist.
Standout Tracks
The introduction, “Real Spill,” sees Lil Baby examine how he has closed his circle and his growth in maturity from his street hustle in Atlanta to a face of hip-hop.
On “Real Spill,” he also ponders about his financial status compared to other celebrities, stating “I’m bigger now I can go to dinner with Corey Gamble and Miss Jenner now” and also the money he has saved for his parents, rapping, “I got too much money for my mom to work a job, I know she proud now.”
Track three, “Pop Out,” features one of the biggest up-and-coming rappers in the game, Jacksonville rapper Nardo Wick, whose menacing, dark approach to hip-hop exploded him into the picture, helping him snag a spot in the 2022 XXL Magazine Freshman Class.
The beat transition from Lil Baby’s verse to Wick’s could be a highlight of the project, with the two rappers exchanging hard-hitting lines about the classics in rap: money, jewelry and being the flashiest members in their cliques.
Wick and Baby could be a combination we see again in the future, as the two also collaborated on Nardo Wick’s song, “Me or Sum” off of his respective album, “Who Is Nardo Wick??”
One of Baby’s standout solo songs on the album, “California Breeze,” depicts the rapper rising to the top with his music crew, 4 Pockets Full, 4PF for short, and also the previous relationships he’s been in and how he tried to give them the world.
He raps, “I’ma give you every piece of game I got when I catch you, I’m just tryna let you feel the breeze with me,” when rapping about the incredible life he would give to his future girlfriend, and the “light breeze” she would feel from being at the top of mountain.
“From Now On,” track 13 on the project, sees fellow Atlanta giant Future join Lil Baby over a bass-heavy beat and an intriguing tornado siren-sounding instrumental, letting the rappers trade their top tier flows.
Even though the song talks about a lot of the same material covered in a majority of the album – money and Lil Baby’s come up in the industry — it serves as a fast-paced standout that will have heavy replay value among fans.
Final Thoughts
Despite “It’s Only Me” most likely not being an album of the year candidate come year’s end, it still is a showcase of Lil Baby’s transition from gritty, Atlanta street rap to a mainstream, mature sound for his audience.
The features from Future, Nardo Wick, Young Thug and others on the album boost it tremendously, and are succeeding more on Apple Music and Spotify charts compared to some of the other lackluster solo tracks that could have been left off to make it a shorter run time.
“It’s Only Me’s” tracklist also does not seem to have a significant structure, as the different style songs are just shuffled throughout, causing some songs to maybe feel out of place on first listen.
With the album projected to move anywhere between 185,000 and 210,000 units its first week, it could serve as his highest-selling album opening week, but that does not necessarily mean that it is his best work.
Lil Baby will continue to hear pressure from fans and critics alike since he has become such a star in hip-hop, with mixed reviews already being pushed onto the project, but “It’s Only Me” is still worth a listen, as the Atlanta rapper advances his case that he should be on the top of Mount Rushmore.
