Photo Credit: XXL Magazine
Rapper Lil Baby is on the cover of the Fall 2019 issue of XXL Magazine and in his interview he gave, he spoke about how he broke into the industry. It wasn’t but a couple years ago he was doing time for possession and intent to sell charges. In realizing his talent and the type of trouble he had already gotten himself in and likely would continue to, that’s when Young Thug came along and paid him to leave the neighborhood he was in and to get in the studio and record.
“Young Thug, he gave me all the jewels,” the “Drip Too Hard” rapper shares. “He literally paid me to leave the neighborhood. [He said], ‘Bruh you can rap, you got it. You could be next. You gotta leave the ’hood… I’ma pay you to come to the studio.’” But Young Thug wasn’t the only one keeping an eye on him. Gucci Mane heard one song of his and expressed interest in signing him but at that point, it was too late. Thugger already had him on his roster.
“I’ma sign him,”Gucci commented under one of his songs he posted on Instagram. “And Thug was like, ‘He already signed to me.’ And then from then on, I just start like every day, I ain’t stop. I’m here now.”
And at this point in his life, Lil Baby has two children to look out for and being out of the neighborhood he was in is likely for the best and he certainly doesn’t need to go back unless it’s to help someone just as Young Thug did for him.
“My ultimate goal is my son, and a lot of other kids, to not have to grow up the way I grew up,” he tells XXL. “I just give them a different outlook on something. I want to let them know they can have this much fun by doing something legal like me rapping for instance. Not just being able to show them a negative lifestyle [but] just to show them the positives.”
“I want to be a superhero dad to where my kid feel like everything I do is nothing wrong,” he says. “He just wants to not be like me, but he so much like me that he becomes better than me. I just want to be that to my children. The ultimate father.”
“Even if I didn’t have the money, or whatever, you know what I’m sayin’, I still want to be Superman to my children.”
Lil Baby’s story is an example of how sometimes people need that one person to help guide them. We just hope to see him do the same for others down the line.
