Since tracks like "Orange Soda" and "Rockstar P" off Baby Keem's 2019 mixtape Die For My B*tch, the 20-year-old California rapper has been ascending into the upper echelons of current hip-hop at a rapid pace. Landing a Travis Scott feature on "Durag Activity" a couple of months ago, it was clear that the buzz surrounding Keem's debut album The Melodic Blue was significant and that rap fans were excited to see what the up-and-comer would pull off with his first studio album.
It turns out that significant buzz was warranted.
Image via HNHH
Coming off the awe-inspiring vocals and visuals for "family ties" with his cousin, Kendrick Lamar, Baby Keem let everyone know before the album even got here what type of time he was on. Stating that he and Kendrick were so bored with rap that they were inventing new languages, Keem helped build the hype and on September 10, he dropped The Melodic Blue for the masses to hear.
Featuring two tracks including "family ties" and "range brothers" with Kendrick (with "range brothers" inspiring an onslaught of memes after Lamar's "top of the mornin', top of the mornin', top of the mornin", top of the mornin'" interjections throughout the back half of the song), as well as deeper, more introspective cuts like "issues," "lost souls," "scars" and "16", the album is a well-rounded project with very high highs and this past weekend, Billboard confirmed what we had all been anticipating: Baby Keem went top-five with The Melodic Blue, debuting at #5 on this week's Billboard Top 200 chart.
Accouting for 53,000 total units (70.13 million on-demand streams and 1,000 pure sales, according to Chart Data on Twitter), The Melodic Blue was the second-most listened to album of the week behind Drake's Certified Lover Boy and is Baby Keem's first top-five album which, after the massive hype surrounding his tracks with Kendrick, new visuals for "first order of business" and his "issues" performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, is a great way to kick off the young rapper's first album cycle.
Check out Baby Keem's Fallon performance below and let us know your favorite songs off The Melodic Blue in the comments.
[Via]