The title begs the question; who is as hard as Lil Baby? Unfortunately, maybe more people than he’d probably like.
Lil Baby’s fourth studio album, ‘WHAM’, or ‘Who Hard As Me’, follows his theme of having an extremely boastful title, after ‘It’s Only Me’ in 2022, and ‘My Turn’ in 2020. The Atlanta rapper, who has just entered his 30s, failed to show proof of these primal statements on these projects and seems to fall short again on this new project. It causes me to think that maybe he is just promising too much or overselling himself.
A well-known name in the trap and mumble rap scene, Lil Baby is a widely successful rapper. What he does works commercially, as proven by this being his fourth album to debut at number 1 on the Billboard 200. But unfortunately, this format is becoming a bit stale for me.
The album starts off well with one of the better songs, ‘Listen up’ being the intro. Dramatic and powerful violin-based production helps Lil Baby push his message that he has matured and learnt lessons, and now his development has helped him get to this point of dominance in the rap scene. He titles himself “the big dog” because of his influence. The production changes to a grand brass beat as he brags about his wealth and how he’s investing it better.
An interesting choice about this track and the one following is that there is no chorus. However, after finding myself looking for one, I wish I hadn’t when the first of many irritating hooks on the album showed up on ‘F U 2x’. This chorus is oddly quick, as if he is quickening its end, and has no lyrical value whatsoever. It is also barely distinguishable from the verses, which is a trait that many of the other hooks on this project have. The lack of tone change, a beat switch, or even a gap in Lil Baby’s rapping, results in many hooks being lost in his flow, and it gives the effect of a meaningless spewing of words over a basic and consistent beat.
The lyricism isn’t the best on this project. A lot of the subject matter is about his money and possessions, especially cars, and while it’s understandable to be proud of your success, it isn’t very original for a trap album’s theme. There is also, disappointingly, a lot of misogyny in this 2025 album. Lil Baby heavily objectifies women on this project. This is seen most on ‘Redbone’ where he closes his extremely disrespectful verse with the disturbing line “She know she mine when I’m in town, you can have her back when I’m finished”. Glorilla also features on this track and I have absolutely nothing to say about her verse.
Lil Baby gets a little more personal on tracks such as ‘I Promise’ and ‘So Sorry’, rapping about heartbreak and betrayal. While I can hear the attempt to sound more emotional, it’s hard to get through with all the autotune smothering it. A real problem for this whole album is that he just can’t let go of the autotune and most of the time it actually makes his vocals sound much worse. Lil Baby has a very nasally and murmuring voice, and soaking it in autotune just enhances the whiny aspects and makes it sound more bland. You really have to concentrate to hear most of what he’s saying on this record.
Some of Lil Baby’s flows are very swift and smooth on this project. This is most evident on ‘Due 4A win’ where he adopts a deeper voice which suits him much better as he attacks the aggressive beat. Another song that showcases Lil Baby’s talents is ‘Stiff Gang’. He raps clearly with an amazing, contagious flow and while the auto-tune is still present, it seems to be working on this track. His lyrics also improve on this cut as Wheezy and Southside team for a cinematic trap beat with heavy drums and atmospheric effects.
There are a few notable features on this album which include two of the biggest names in mumble rap, Future, and Young Thug, who both appear on Track two, ‘Dum, dumb and dumber’. This track is nothing special, to be honest. Just a generic trap song with a decent catchy beat and big-name features who underperform. However, both these features unfortunately outshine our main man. This can also be said for ‘Stuff’ and ‘Outfit’ which feature Travis Scott and 21 Savage respectively. Scott brings a hype energy to the project and, while he seems to bring the best out of Lil Baby, this sounds like a Travis Scott track with a Lil Baby feature.
Lil Baby has some new producers make some of his beats on this project. The production is quite basic with no beat switches, even for a chorus. Almost all the tracks have one beat that plays consistently throughout and a lot of them are just typical hi-hat trap beats. Most of the tracks also have ab-libs after almost every line which is just Lil Baby summaries or copying what he just said. You start to wonder why they are even included when they turn the volume dramatically down and bury them in the lines so they are almost unnoticeable.
Overall, I think this album is a bit of a disappointment. Although there are a few highs, the lows are lower. The beats are basic, the flow is a lot of the time off-tempo and the repetitive, annoying effects that plague most of the songs don’t help. This is a…
Poor album
4/10