Lil Baby recently showed up to The New York Times Popcast program with Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli to talk about his upcoming new album Fresh and reflect on his career. One of the narratives against him in recent years has been the assumption that he "fell off." Baby's thoughts on the matter are quite interesting, as he believes fans hyper-focus on him rather than on MCs who fell off harder.
"Chill... I'm on that level. 'Baby fell off.' What?" he expressed. "The people that it applies to, you don't hear it about... It applies to a lot of people. That's the cycle of it. The cycle that I'm on, the level that I'm on, it's not a lot of people that are on that level."
It seems like the Atlanta rapper believes people who actually fell off don't even show up in the conversation the same way he does. As such, this is a sign of engagement and interest that, although negative, shows he's still relevant in the game and operating on a high level. While some fans replied to this with sympathy or defense, others pointed to factors like the Gunna feud, lowering sales, and other narratives as counterpoints.
Lil Baby & Gunna Beef
Speaking of which, Lil Baby addressed this Gunna dynamic on Popcast as well. The former collaborators fell out after Wunna's plea deal in the YSL RICO case.
"Whether I like them or they like me, it’s like, we all going to be on that personal vibe," he shared. "We can not like each other but we going to play it cool for y’all, you know what I’m saying? It’s like an unspoken thing. It’s like a new thing now. I see like, people be going at each other and stuff, like, we ain’t really on that. We got a problem? We can handle our problem off the Internet, in person, just us... I’d rather have that beef or problem personally because we’re… really like the ones who hold it down for the town."
Lil Baby has other drama to handle, such as continued conflict with DJ Akademiks online. But ahead of Fresh's release, he wants to show he's still got it.
