At the end of the 2010s and the start of the 2020s, Lil Baby was on top of the world. He made a litany of hot singles and features that paired him alongside giants like Drake, Future, and Young Thug. But after a while, many fans grew tired of his work. Then, some of those fans joined the firm haters in believing he fell off or never made good music to begin with.
Paired with a ton of personal and industry issues, the Atlanta MC was admittedly ready to walk away from hip-hop. In an interview with The New York Times, Lil Baby candidly told Jon Caramanica and Joe Coscarelli that he wondered if he wanted to do something else with his life.
“I did get in a space of, like, do you wanna do this? Like, I’ll figure something else out to do. Rap turned into more… like wrestling,” Lil Baby said. “I ain’t sign up for that. It kind of gets real rocky. From the criminal part to the stuff they trying to do to you. It’s a lot for me.”
Additionally, he said that he’ll never make music out of an obligation. Anything that he does, even if it’s as uncanny as doing TikToks and remixes with MrBeast, is done out of his own desire.
Lil Baby Talks About The Depression That Nearly Made Him Leave Hip-Hop
“It’s a vibe thing with me. Music is my vibe. I gotta wanna go to MrBeast, I gotta wanna to go and do a TikTok. When I’m going through a lot of stuff and I ain’t in the right mind space, it’s like I don’t even do it, you understand? So a lot of what you see now is just me coming out of a dark space that I was in,” Lil Baby explained.
The worst part of being in that depressed state of mind is that it makes you want to sink into despair. However, the My Turn rapper recalled still having to show up and be present for the people in his life, even if his headspace wasn’t in the right place. Consequently, some of his loved ones saw the worst sides of him.
“That’s the crazy thing, because I gotta show up for everyone still,” Lil Baby added. “And I hate it, because my closest people might get it the worst, because they might be right in the midst of it. You will never know.”
Photo by Prince Williams/Getty Images for The Jones Project
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