Lil Baby’s inspiration to perfect his craft was greatly inspired by Gunna in a very creative way.
In a bit of news unearthed by Genius, Lil Baby spoke to German hip-hop platform 16 Bars about his early days in the game. The rapper, who earned a BET Award for Best New Artist this year, says he paid Gunna to write raps for him in order to practice his own raps.
While none of the songs Gunna were released, they have been used as reference tracks during the duos studio sessions.
“I done paid Gunna to write my songs. I never put the songs out but like when I first started rapping I used to pay him like $100 like ‘I’ma give you $100 write something for me so I can try to learn to go in and record it,” the Street Gossip rapper said.
Their tightknit friendship in and out of the studio also was considered teachable moments for the rapper. “That’s how I used to practice and try to get it right because I just started rapping out of nowhere.”
Gunna told Rolling Stone that he was the inspiration for Lil Baby to take his craft seriously. “I kinda helped push [Lil Baby] a little bit to go harder,” Gunna said. “He didn’t really care about [rapping] that much. He was being him, just chilling. I was critiquing his music, but also letting him know it sounded good, he should keep going, [offering] words of encouragement.”
Lil Baby and Da Baby released a track entitled “Baby” Wednesday (July 17), he pulled up on verse one and the chorus of the new hit single.
Heating up verse one with these bars, it looks like the $100 sessions with Gunna paid off.
