Lil Baby’s run-on sentence raps relax into cliched platitudes. Stories concerning the pressures of fame could offer insight if they were not constantly interrupted by hollow boasts. His voice projects confidence and consistency. There is some slickness to how he slips through word traps, but it is without the necessary sense of urgency. Lil Baby dips and lifts through melodic flows with routine ease. 20 songs is entirely too long for a record that so often repeats itself. The surface of “My Turn” is taken in all at once and sustained by momentary jolts. He is comfortable working on iterations of vocal techniques that others already innovated. There aren’t hints that tell us the latter is interested in challenging the average listener. Young Thug bent words and phrases, while Lil Baby simply knows where to put them. Ironically, it sounds like the opposite of his predecessor’s chaotic unpredictability. His descriptions come in fragmented flashes as each track employs a similar vocabulary. Lil Baby’s rapping is serviceable, but too frequently he relies on trends over style. The songs carry friction, but the listening experience as a whole does not. Within the album, there are few surprises. As more than just a commercial compromise, it intentionally conforms to expectation. While previous projects offered shades of developing talent, “My Turn” shows Lil Baby retreating into the familiar pitbull barking raps we already know he can do. His life changed in 2016 when he began rapping following a two-year prison sentence.
He has natural skills for someone relatively new to the art form. Lil Baby seems capable of equaling Herb in maturity and intensity, but it has not happened yet. It was released during the same weekend as Chicago rapper G Herbo’s album “ PTSD.” Atlanta’s budding star should be grateful that sharing release dates is now seen as a coincidence instead of competition. “My Turn” does not stick out and thus falls susceptible to convenient comparisons. In contrast, Lil Baby’s cover simply blends into the background of a livemixtapes page. Last year, Gunna’s hilarious album artwork for “ Drip or Drown 2” raised the bar for this new generation. Surely, some more conceptual effort would go a long way toward separating him from his peers.
The album matches the lack of imagination afforded in the cover art. He is offloading another album to the assembly line. The title “My Turn” makes Lil Baby’s intentions unmistakably clear. After putting out seven projects in two years, the 25-year-old artist released a new album, “ My Turn,” Feb 28. Fast forward to 2020 and listeners sit in suspense - who will make this decade’s first great rap album? It is safe to say that title will not be going to Lil Baby. Both artists activate their own riffs off of Young Thug’s slippery vocal performances.
To fill this void, Lil Baby and Gunna’s partnership achieved national success with hot air hits like “ Drip Too Hard” and “ Sold Out Dates.” These records are efficient but hardly original. When local superstars Young Thug and Future leaned into commercial consistency, they left the street-level stylings to the next generation. Perhaps this will be the year we find out if Atlanta’s new generation of rappers, like Lil Baby, Lil Keed and Gunna, will continue in their artistic development. Even artists whose industry positions range from middling to marquee have question marks over their output. To find worthwhile gems, fans are tasked with parsing through oversaturated projects and underdeveloped emcees. In the opening months of 2020, the digital rap market has seen a flood of first-quarter albums, mixtapes and data dumps.