Lil Baby Crowned ‘Best Artist Of Our Generation’ After Making Billboard Chart History
Lil Baby has made Billboard history with his new album It’s Only Me — and he’s received some pretty high praise because of it.
On Monday (October 24), the Atlanta rapper’s 4PF label dubbed him the “best artist of our generation” on Instagram after resharing a tweet that shows Lil Baby simultaneously charted 25 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 this week, including all 23 tracks from his latest album.
This massive achievement makes Lil Baby the youngest artist to ever secure that many spots on the Hot 100. He’s also solely the third artist to ever achieve such a feat following Drake, whose 27-track double album Scorpion charted in its entirety back in 2018.
It’s Only Me also debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 this week, moving 216,000 equivalent album units, the biggest first-week sales of his career so far.
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It’s Only Me is now the third biggest Hip Hop debut of 2022 behind Kendrick Lamar‘s Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers (295,000) and Future‘s I Never Liked You (222,000). It even outsold Drake‘s surprise album Honestly, Nevermind, which moved 204,000 first-week units.
Lil Baby’s previous solo project My Turn by comparison still debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 back in 2020, but moved 197,000 album-equivalent units. It still dominated the chart for five weeks and has since been certified quadruple platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).
Meanwhile, Baby reflected on his tumultuous journey to success in a recent interview with The Experience Podcast, and said he was unhappy for a long time before he broke through.
“I had a lot of shit I was going through,” he said. “Getting adjusted to this shit, changing, having to stop being around people I’m used to being around, doing shit I used to be doing … Adapting to my new environment put me in a dark spot for a minute.”
He added: “Really starting everything over, all the way down to your thoughts. That shit can kinda fuck with you. Now you really gotta tell yourself, ‘You can’t think like that no more.’ That shit can be a little depressing.”
Aside from becoming a chart-topping powerhouse, Lil Baby revealed that his feature price has also gone way up since My Turn dropped.
“I don’t even be doing features no more,” Lil Baby told the pod. “But like 300[K], 350[K]. 250[K], 300[K], something like that. But I ain’t been doing features lately. Like now, I’m about to put out an album, but if I don’t got an album or nothing going on, [it’s] like, why not?”