North Carolina rapper DaBaby has had an extremely successful debut year. His debut album “Baby on Baby” featured singles “Suge” and “Babysitter” which both found success on the Billboard Hot 100 charts. He is clearly making waves in the rap game and becoming a favorite up-and-coming rapper for many people.
DaBaby released his second studio album “KIRK” September 27, and it is undeniably a better project than “Baby on Baby.” That isn’t saying much; the average song is better than on “Baby on Baby”. However, the repetitiveness and lack of actual structure is consistent between the two projects.
“KIRK” feels like DaBaby wrote five great songs, then stretched those to 13 tracks. There are some good songs, and some great verses from DaBaby; unfortunately when every other song sounds basically the same, it can be difficult to find the gems. The album struggles as a whole because of its lack of variety.
I understand the appeal of DaBaby, especially with the flood of mediocre, awful rappers forced into the mainstream by terrible Spotify playlists and the XXL Freshman List. When you put DaBaby next to rappers like Lil Mosey, Blueface and YK Osiris, he shines purely for the reason that he isn’t terrible. Even I can admit that on many occasions, he is pretty great.
I think DaBaby has some great qualities as a rapper. His signature flow and delivery make his verses blatantly obvious, and I think he will grow and develop and come out with a solid project. His feature verses on Chance the Rapper’s “Hot Shower” and Megan Thee Stallion’s “Cash Shit” make it clear that he can comfortably stand beside Hot Girl Meg herself and carry one of the dumbest songs in Chance’s entire discography.
“KIRK” is only a 2/5, however I have high hopes for DaBaby’s future. The songs “VIBEZ”, “POP STAR” and “GOSPEL” stood out as the best on the album, while “iPHONE” can unconsciously trigger me to hit the skip button as fast as possible; Nicki Minaj’s verse is beyond terrible. As DaBaby progresses, I hope he finds some variety and capabilities in producing an album.
Mitchell Kret can be reached at [email protected] or @mkret222 on Twitter.
