So that’s like the main thing to me, managing my money the right way. It’s a hard challenge for me, with all the distractions and shit. Staying focused now that I got a lot to lose. Wayne: I’m gonna shoot you some joints, let you listen to them.īaby: Staying focused. It’s gotta be R&B, soul music, shit you feel. I listen to everybody.īaby: I like anything that got a vibe. I make sure I hear what everybody makes, just to make sure that we all still going through the same battles. Then I might flip it around: Smashing Pumpkins, Nirvana. Wayne: The first is gonna be Miss Anita Baker, then Missy Elliott. What are your influences outside of rap music? When I send it back, I want that person to be impressed, and be more than satisfied with what they just got back. So whoever gives me a song, that’s my main thing. The trait that’s gotten me to where I’m at right now is that I’ve always tried to impress. I want to know who the song is for and what’s the song about, and after that, I go back into Lil Baby mode: I just go in there and kill it. I’m just thinking, like, “Go hard as I can go on this beat.” My whole process when I walk in the booth is go hard. I was always rapping, remixing peoples songs, switching the words up. I have songs that are remakes of spinoffs of songs from that album, you know?īaby: I can’t remember. I got lyrics from the album tattooed on me and shit. It was the first album where I actually the car that the rapper was talking about. Wayne: Jay-Z, Life and Times of Shawn Carter, plain and simple. What was one of the first albums that impacted you? When I jumped in the game, was frowned upon, you know: “There go them boys with their shake-that-ass music.” Nah, man, we talking about something! I heard something come on the radio, and I got to ask Mack, “Who that is?” And when he tell me where they from, I’m like, “Nah, they can’t be from New York.” But you know, it’s flattery. I walked up to the DJ, and that’s it: “Let me see the mic.” So one day, I got hyped up off of some Mountain Dew I was just 11 years old. So those regular guys who rocked every block party, they were superstars. And they were almost like a concert, but the mic was always open. Growing up, we had block parties very frequently. Your teachers, your friends, they’re not gonna know who they are.” Can I ask you a few questions? What rappers influenced you?” My answer was: “I’m sorry. My oldest son, he’s doing an assignment for school right now, and he asked me this week: “Dad, I have to do an assignment on you. Wayne: New Orleans is the reason why I am a rapper, bro, plain and simple. I feel like where you come from is 90 percent you. How did those cities shape you?īaby: It shaped me a whole lot, ’cause that’s my swag, my flavor, my flow. Wayne, you’re from New Orleans, Baby’s from Atlanta. I’m like, “Who this?” Reginae was like, “That’s what I’m talking about.” So once it got solidified, I was a fan forever. I remember I saw the video “Drip Too Hard.” Of course, that was riding a wave where a lot of music was sounding the same.
I can’t even remember, like, the first time I heard a Lil Wayne song, but I knew them fucking word for word back then.
I can’t even remember, maybe elementary or middle school. So that’s how I am rocking out: doing whatever I want, as long as I put them numbers up.”īaby: I heard you real young. “The reason was because he put the numbers up behind it. Baby likes how Wayne was able to balance huge radio hits with wild creative choices (including his 2010 rock album, The Rebirth.) “I always felt like Wayne did what he wanted to do,” says Baby.
BABY ON LIL BABY TOO HARD ALBUM COVER SERIES
Baby was in his early teens when Wayne reshaped rap with his mixtape series No Ceilings and the multiplatinum Tha Carter III.