Lil Baby Essentials

Compared to some of his Atlanta peers (Gunna, Migos, early booster Young Thug), Lil Baby is a chiller: He shrugs off fashion shows, he doesn’t have tattoos (he doesn’t want business partners from the white world thinking he’s something he isn’t), and even when he boasts, he keeps it low-key. (“I never call myself a G.O.A.T.,” he raps on “Emotionally Scarred”, “I leave that love to the people.”) But the tracks here also speak to a sense of lyricism and intensity that has made him one of the steadiest, most compelling voices in the new chapter of trap—and the 2020 Apple Music Awards’ Artist of the Year. Sometimes nothing speaks louder than staying quiet.