Last week, Baby Keem finally dropped his long-awaited sophomore album, Ca$ino. The project boasts features from the likes of Too $hort, Momo Boyd, Che Ecru, Denzel Curry, and more. The California-born performer's cousin, Kendrick Lamar, even hopped on two songs.
The project managed to rack up an impressive 13.8 million Spotify streams within a day of its release, making it the biggest debut on the platform of his career. Now, it looks like he's headed for yet another career first. Per Kurrco, first-week sales projections are in, and Ca$ino is expected to move approximately 71K units. This would place it at No. 4 on the Billboard 200 albums chart and mark the biggest sales week for the 25-year-old so far.
Ahead of the release of Ca$ino, Baby Keem hosted a listening party in Los Angeles, where he opened up about his five-year hiatus.
Baby Keem Ca$ino Listening Party
"I think the obvious point in the room is that it's been a long time since I seen some of y'all," he told the crowd. "My grandma passed away last year, same month. This is a celebration tonight for her... I think she's here in spirit. When I was writing this album, I was just surfing through the topics. These same prominent stories about how I grew up, I just wanted to shine light on that for people."
"As I grow my career, this is a very special night," he continued. "I went away and I did something very important and I got to shine light on that story... It's not that I'm elusive or trying to be gimmicky. It's just real life s**t that I go through every day... During the album, I remember getting a call that said my mom had left rehab. For me, that was the last option, the last hope... How did y'all let her leave? And that was hours after I got off [Coachella]."
"Tonight is a celebration for those that go through things," Keem concluded. "I named it Ca$ino because that's where I went through all of the things that I went through... Nobody wants to talk about their mom being that sort of way. I kind of changed my perspective on that a lot... It's an empowering thing. I wouldn't change my story, ever... This album is for the child that walks home slow."
