I NEVER GAVE AF

Album ∙ Hip-Hop/Rap ∙ 2025

Raq baby

Like so many of the Atlanta superstars who have helped shape modern rap music, the city’s Raq baby has an almost preternatural gift for melody. He rarely writes hooks, instead choosing to infuse every one of his bars with a sticky-sweet singsong flow. The best way to figure out what differentiates a verse from a chorus is listening to hear which one he repeats. It allows Raq baby to rap like he’s sprinting to a finish line only he can see, rhyming lyric after lyric with zero intention of stopping until the beat quits playing and the recording engineer tells him it’s time to go home.

The energy of his delivery and earworm nature of the vocals belie some intense, deeply personal subject matter. On the album opener, “DoorDash (OMG),” he laments that he’s bad at embracing how he feels, but goes crazy over his pills. On “Feel Bad,” which features G Herbo, he acknowledges that he can’t go anywhere without a weapon, knowing that one slip-up is all his opps need.