How a studio session with Lil Wayne inspired Lil Baby’s rise
Lil Wayne has inspired a whole generation of artists. Since the late ’90s, Weezy has released some of the most essential albums, with his Tha Carter series serving as pivotal albums for rappers such as Kendrick Lamar.
The New Orleans rapper has also inspired Lil Baby, who has remained one of the biggest names since he broke onto the scene in 2017, in person. During an episode of Sneaker Shopping, Wayne opened up about a studio session with Baby, during which he admitted he couldn’t use the same flow that he used. However, his stance quickly changed after working on his craft.
“I was in a session with him before,” Wayne began. “He heard a beat come on out of the blue that I was working on. It was an uptempo beat. It was probably a feature for somebody. Baby was like, ‘I couldn’t even begin to rap on no shit like that.’ After that session, I done heard two or three songs like that come out that he done did. I was like ‘See, he went right back and figured it out.'”
The ‘Lollipop’ rapper described Lil Baby as his favourite rapper in 2020, not just for the music he was releasing, but his hunger to improve as an artist. “I’m rockin’ with straight Lil Baby… he different,” he said on the All the Smoke podcast. “He’s a young man. That’s how I simply title him up. It’s not the quote-unquote phrase of it. He’s the definition of both words. He’s a young man. He’s open-minded too. He wants to learn. He wants to know more.”
Wayne has admitted he doesn’t listen to much new music. However, during a conversation with Rolling Stone, he praised the Atlanta rapper for his sound and lyrics. “When I listen to anybody, I’m listening to lyrics,” he said. “Listening and hearing are two different things: We hear shit we might like, but we only love things that we listen to. I started listening to the lyrics, I started listening to what the homie was saying.
“And when you’re speaking about something so real like that and figuring out how to make that shit actually go together and sound the way he make it sound — make it rhyme, even when it doesn’t rhyme, even when it doesn’t have to rhyme — that’s when you’re discovering something within yourself.”
Lil Baby returned the compliment, adding, “I always feel like Wayne did what he wanted to do, in a sense. And the reason I feel like he could do whatever he wanted to do was because he put the numbers up behind him. So that’s the way I’m kind of rocking. I’m gonna rock out how I wanna rock out, as long as I put the numbers up.”
Wayne collaborated with Baby in 2020 on ‘Forever’, a song that appeared on his Billboard 200 number-one album, My Turn. Produced by Twysted Genius, the track finds them rapping about refusing to sell out and remaining true to themselves. Lil Baby featured on ‘I Do It’ with Big Sean from Wayne’s Funeral album that same year.