The Unforeseen Downfall of Lil Baby's Career...

and the BET award goes to Lil Baby in 2020 low baby had the biggest album of the entire year in terms of streaming numbers beating records from the likes of Taylor Swift and Harry Styles to claim the top spot then in October of 2022 he simultaneously charted 25 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 becoming the youngest person to ever achieve this fee but with an arena tour being canceled due to poor sales in his name cropping up less and less in cultural conversation it seems as if low baby is facing real adversity Within the Music Industry for the first time I'm a waster and today I'm here to answer one simple question did little baby fall off or is his downfall being over exaggerated by the hip-hop community when low baby first bursted onto the scene in 2017 he was seen as one of the most fastest growing rappers in the history of hip-hop he went from practically being a nobody to being signed to the same label as the Amigos got the Drake stimulus package and was already putting out songs that were considered to be Anthems for the City of Atlanta now this is insane because only two years prior to 2017. low baby was just another dude hanging out in the street and during multiple run-ins with the law due to things stemming from marijuana possession reckless driving eluding police and attempting to escape arrest after a high-speed chase yeah that boy baby was out here doing the Race like TK in 2017 but this won't be the only time in the video where baby will get penalized for changing lanes if you know what I mean and later we'll discuss the DraStic effect this had when it happened in his career but hanging out in the streets of Atlanta had both positive and negative effects on low baby on one hand it led him to various trouble but on the other it also provided him with valuable connections these connections allowed him to meet influential rappers like Young Thug and Gunna who both played a crucial role in his success additionally meeting Coach K and BRP Thomas who run the label quality control which you guys probably know as QC which became a huge turning point for him this is the same label that had signed artists like the Migos and Lil yachty and were instrumental in helping them Skyrocket in their career these people would all have to encourage baby to rap as they all believed he had all the characteristics that were needed to become a famous rapper Coach K used to always say man baby got that swag he got that real young Atlanta [ __ ] swag man I'm telling you need to rap coaches to always say that but rapping came at a cost and Lil Baby was all about the back since rapping wasn't really making any bread and low baby had a duty to provide for his family by hustling drugs and playing dice he needed to see money coming in to get away from that life he was living words of encouragement didn't do enough for him like they say money toss and thankfully it was Young Thug who aided him financially as he really believed in baby's ability to hit the mainstream even though I really literally like paid me to leave the neighborhood like so you can rap you got it I'm telling him like you could be that like bro you gotta leaders I pay you to come to the hood today how much you gonna make today like I'm gonna pay you to come to the to the studio just stay at the studio all day Gunner would also play a huge role as he would act as Lil baby's Ghost Rider for some time and when he got the hang of it he was Off to the Races Lil Baby even claimed he told QC that he wouldn't stop living the life he was living if he didn't at least get five million dollars for a deal now I tried researching what deal he was given by QC but it was really difficult to find however it seems that he was signed to QC in 2017 and when he did he wasted no time and we're going to drop three projects that same year that really put him on the map specifically for songs like pure cocaine made a brick do a brick game rip up [ __ ] dish [Music] but as if dropping three projects in 2017 wasn't enough low baby proved that he was only getting started as he dropped four more successful projects in 2018. including the collaborative project drip harder with Gunna the street gossip mixtape in his debut album harder than ever peeking at number three on the charts harder than ever made it evident that little baby was Playing for Keeps and in a career that had been full of Helping Hands Lil Baby was about to get another one on this record when he became a beneficiary of what has been referred to in hip-hop circles as the Drake stimulus package after he got Drizzy to make an appearance on the hit track yes indeed in all the favors they never repay me it worked in my favor because nobody's got no keys now the song yes indeed was most people's introduction to Lil Baby and it peaked at number six on the charts but with the impact that it had on his career it might as well been that of a number one in terms of what it did for his status as was also the case for drip harder's title track which landed at number four but ultimately went on to become low babies first and currently only Diamond record suddenly becoming one of the most in-demand artists for features low baby would spend the remainder of 2018 and 2019 contributing to tracks for other artists including Lil Durk Yo Gotti DJ Khaled post Malone and many more throughout this time he has been building up a buzz that made his 2020 project my turn one of the biggest hip-hop albums of the decade it was released in February of 2020 and sold 197 units in the first week giving baby his first number one album by the time he dropped the deluxe edition he had his first and only number one single with the black lives matter Anthem the bigger picture which was released during the George Floyd Riot sadly since this album was released during the pandemic all the concerts and shows were closed out so he wasn't really able to cash in and capitalize on the success of this album looking back it's wild to think how big babies shows could have been in the my turn era it was literally the biggest record in the world in 2020 but he never got to take it directly to his fan base and now it seems like many of his fans might have lost interest and we'll discuss the reasons why shortly basically in the aftermath of my turns released it seemed that little baby could do no wrong with even the likes of the legendary Kanye West labeling him his favorite rapper before long yay asked him to hop onto hurricane alongside the weekend making him one of the many people who saw baby's assistants in 2021 and 2022. it was so in demand that he even claimed to have charged about 300 racks for a feature back in 2022 after dropping the voice of the heroes collab project with Lil Durk which did 150 000 first week units and another number one 2022 looked to be the year that baby took crown that so many people seemed eager to place upon his head and Talon staying humble and in the moment he said all the right things in terms of delivering a record that would surpass my turn as rather than focusing on the temporary high of charge success low baby insisted to The Breakfast Club that for him it was longevity that really mattered what is important to you when you put together a project and I do well also that they do Wells for a long period of time like that's what matters to me like I wanted to stick but as we know this wasn't the case this time as for the first time in his career fans would be left wanting more from a little baby release and soon a man who had only known plane sailing as a performer was faced with a bombardment of negativity from critics and fans initially the numbers all suggested that things were moving in the right direction when he dropped his third album in October of 2022. upon its release the album titled it's only me sold 216 album equivalent units including 6500 pure album sales which is absurd for this day and age where streaming is everyone's go-to option for listening to their favorite music while this is pretty amazing there was something strange about this release unlike his other projects this album stayed only one week on the top before dropping directly out of the top 10 and it seemed pretty fishy to make things worse the reviews were brutally unimpressed Lil baby is at his best when he's using those tricks to switch between boots but there's only one on it's only me wrote Pitchfork who gave his album a 5.5 out of 10. and it's indifferent not in the too cool to care kind of way but in the way when words have no weight but behind them perhaps even more shockingly the album didn't deliver on the commercial front either although it helped little baby make history becoming the youngest artist to have 23 tracks on the billboard at once none of them stayed there for very long or made much of a lasting impact making it seem as if returning fans listened to the song a few times and weren't really feeling them leading them to quickly dispose of it while other albums had big singles to Anchor the wall out around it's only me's lead single hey peaked at number 21. meanwhile California Breeze in Friday briefly hit the top 10 but this appeared soon after in the view of academics who found himself getting dissed on the album in the shape of bars like academics know he ain't richer than me the problem was due to the amount of success he had obtained meant that no one was willing to challenge him on his artistic missteps instead opting to hold on to their meal ticket until it went into the shredder basically bro had a bunch of Yes Men surrounding him and what can they really say when the past couple years everything Lil Baby had touched turned to Gold sharing footage from inside the studio academics blasted his crew as nothing but yes men riding look around that everybody in the studio this day you previewed the song they're all liars this should have never left the engineer's headphones and during his appearance on the flagrant podcast with Andrew Schultz ack outlined a reaction to the project within the inner circle of the industry as well as diagnosing what he felt went wrong no I talked to his peers too I talked to other people rap they're all shocked that this is the album that was dropped even though it's not trash I'm gonna amplify the fact that it's mid which might be just as detrimental if it was trash in this sense the achievement that low baby pulled off with it's only me flattered to deceive a little or as one Twitter user put it Lil Baby occupying the entire top 23 on Apple music with songs from it's only me doesn't mean the album ain't mid while my turn success was a catalyst for a period of dominance this certainly was isn't the case for it's only me and as a result by the 20th of December 2022 chart data reported that low baby is not present on the Hot 100 for the first time this decade ending a 176 week streak of charting and while this was likely a major blow to his ego it was nothing compared to what was coming as I said in the intro low baby star is in a bit of a tail spin at the moment as he's now having to cancel some shows during his it's only US tour even though he's tried his best to sweeten the pot by taking the likes of glorilla in the kid Leroy on tour with him shows in Phoenix Sacramento Salt Lake City Denver Indianapolis Louisville and Pittsburgh were all canceled without explanation but in all likelihood it's because these shows were simply not selling almost instantly Twitter did what they do and went crazy basically jumping to conclusions about the fall off of Lil Baby and while that might be a little overzealous to some it's certainly not a great look for starters even with hip-hop's dominance on the charts it's still uncommon for MCS to be able to accomplish the feat of selling out Arenas and many of these venues Lil Baby was trying to sell out at capacities of upwards of 20 000 people in terms of mainstream hip-hop you need to be as Elite of an artist as the likes of Dre Eminem Nicki Minaj or yay to comfortably fill a basketball stadium or bigger even Travis Scott is experiencing a little bit of blowback from audiences who aren't convinced that he can sell out stadiums single-handedly besides it's not like it's only me was his strongest project simply put even though it's only me outsold my turn in the first instance he hasn't gotten anywhere near the degree of adoration from the audience and Industry in general as he did back then and the album basically disappeared from the world's Collective Consciousness but what contributed to this Pitfall and how does he fix it before it's too late one argument would be that as often happens his wealth has made him complacent and robbed him of the fierce work ethic that he had back in the day for starters he admittedly stopped sharpening his skills and now is only doing features purely for money rather than to advance his talents as an MC but what's your feature price right now [Music] in terms of the music on it's only me one common critique that's come up from online reviewers like Anthony fantano in the NFR podcast has been the staleness in production a familiar criticism that's been leveled as someone like NBA young boy in recent years as they continue to make the same songs over and over again and expect to continue striking gold low baby continues to use the likes of ATL Jacob chi chi murder beats and Wheezy among others rather than reaching out of his comfort zone as a result some redditors have wondered if he needs to lock in with just one producer to deliver a degree of cohesion to his work while the Beats may be one reason for how uninspired he sounded on the project this manifested in his lyrics too a record which featured songs about adjusting to fame rather than the honest insightful bars about his life that made his name there's every chance that people were perhaps expecting something more on the content front too as when you consider it's his only number one the bigger picture technically remains his biggest song when it initially dropped Coach K maintained that the song was literally a gateway drug for people to get into little baby but given that he hasn't had any number ones since it appears that those fans didn't necessarily stick around and maybe they were relying on some of those conflated numbers who listened to the track to fill those Arenas plus it doesn't help that since then Lil Baby has publicly renounced that direction the more I'm seeing what's up with all that [ __ ] the more I'm like let me back off politics he told GQ in 2020. I don't want to be no Malcolm X or Martin Luther King I stuck my nose in it I'm good at that now operating in Celebrity circles low baby has become a household name and while that sounds positive it likely informed him and his team that they were on the right track when they were really setting themselves up to experience diminishing returns by not evolving enough appearing in ax body spray commercials and getting clowned for his TV spots for the Billboard Music Awards baby has gone from Oakland City to hanging with billionaires and it's clear that's exactly the kind of territory that he wants to be in it seems to be spending a lot of time around billionaires what are you learning from from being around these people being around those type of people I learned a lot of different stuff in business business and like how to spend money when I get my money now pictured all white parties little baby has shed his original image and while no one is suggesting he should have stayed in the hood it seems like he's trying to speedrun his hip-hop career to the point of being an arena selling artist with a massive Network when he hasn't necessarily did all the work required for that and now it appears that some of those same listeners that made him a star are beginning to sour on him or as is often the case in a genre as fast-paced as hip-hop have since moved on to someone else to little baby's credit he understood this was a very viable possibility given how fickled the game is and opened up about it during an appearance on revolt's big facts podcast it's possible it's possible but for the most part it'd be like you have a little Windows a previously humble artist that now has his own labels IG account saluting him as the best artist of his generation it seems like the celebrity lifestyle likely lured him into to a false sense of security in terms of his power as a draw and as a result he didn't necessarily Take On the Musical Evolution needed to keep his fans engaged for all these reasons low baby is now facing the toughest Crossroads of his career but is there still time to course correct well in low baby's opinion it seems so do you feel like you've mastered your craft yet not at all I just say my crap as a rapper I feel like I'm 20. why why do you say what about the other 80. I gotta get down while little baby knows he has a journey ahead he hasn't fully grasped the exact requirements to achieve his goals it's crucial to recognize that his current position doesn't mean it's impossible to succeed however he's yet to join the elite group of rappers who can easily fill these Arenas to reach that level he must ReDiscover the drive he once had when he released an impressive seven projects in just two years by reconnecting with that spirit and undergoing the artistic Evolution he believes is necessary there's no doubt he can reach those remarkable Heights once again it's a matter of finding the right path to success in a genre where both critics and fans can be passionate but let me know in the comments what you guys think Lil baby needs to do to keep his career afloat in the meantime if you like this video you're definitely gonna like the ones on the screen and as always don't forget to subscribe peace

Channel: Louaista

Views: 373,777

Keywords: hip hop, canvas, canvas man, louaista

Id: LDum7Fbmn0s

Length: 17min 49sec (1069 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 13 2023