BabyChiefDoIt Is Ready For His “Big One”

As distinct as he is today, BabyChiefDoIt’s first raps were a Frankensteinian masterpiece of cap. Using an instrumental from Playboi Carti’s Whole Lotta Red, he recorded lyrics from 22Gz’s “Suburban” before playing the track for his impressed friends. While he knew the lyrics weren’t his, he got the reaction he wanted. But he found something more enriching than the art of deception. “I just remember playing it back, and I just liked to hear my voice over this beat,” he says. “And that feeling never left.” Neither did his audience. 

Since emerging with tracks like “EBGDITB” in 2024, BabyChiefDoIt’s used kinetic flows and a trace of whimsy to become Chicago’s most colorful drill export. Tracks like “Went West” and “The Viper” have collected over 140 million combined Spotify streams since their release, and last year he was named an XXL Freshman. The latest level-up came a week before our Google Meet call, when the 18-year-old performed in front of tens of thousands of people at Rolling Loud Orlando. “I just never heard that many voices or seen that many people,” he tells me. “Was it my biggest [show]? I’m not sure,” he adds. “But it’s definitely my favorite.” 

BabyChiefDoIt will have a chance to get a new favorite whenever he hits the road for RAMBO, a forthcoming project set to crystallize his proverbial rap stardom. It’s titled after a Sylvester Stallone classic, but it’s an acronym for something realer. “Rise Against My Broken Odds is basically just to explain everything that I overcame in life, being from Chicago, going through the things that I went through and rising above all of that,” he says. 

Narratively speaking, BabyChiefDoIt is both in the middle of a customary rap comeup and in the aftermath of a comedown. The story typically goes like this: A rap upstart blends traditions from his city’s past and present to overcome the tribulations of Chicago and become a superstar that inspired his community. By 2025, he’d completed those stereotypical milestones. Then came the trash part of the rap fairytale: the Fall. A temporary one, at least.

Riding the wave of momentum toward the end of 2025, BabyChiefDoIt did what any sensible teenage rap star would do with the fruits of their success: Party every weekend. Unfortunately, he suffered the metaphorical hangover. “I kind of got comfortable and started spending more time on what the success brought me instead of focusing on the music,” he tells me. “When I was at my lowest, nobody was there. So, I was at the point where I was just alone and lifeless.”  

In what was perhaps an attempt to resurrect himself, BabyChiefDoIt relocated from Chicago to Atlanta. He’s lived there for about six months now, and he’s noted a difference in the creative ecosystem. “Everybody in Atlanta is willing to collab and grow together,” he says. “I come from Chicago, where it's a lot of gatekeeping and everybody doing their own thing.” 

When he’s at home, he describes himself as a window-sitter that plays video games and watches biopics. He’s not out as much as he was in the past, and things are better that way for now. When he’s not kicking at his crib, he’s trying to repair a relationship. 

Before 2025, Pandemic-era Rapture TikTok was BabyChiefDoIt’s most profound religious experience. But when he found himself isolated by fame, he realized he’d need more than TikTok scripture to save his soul. 

“There’s a big difference between believing in God and knowing there's a God and then having an intimate face to face relationship with God,” he says. “I got caught up in a lot of distractions and partying every weekend and this and that and I kind of just got lost in it and my relationship with God kind of fell off and my career started to derail.” 

To re-rail himself and repair his spiritual connection, he says he started the first three days of every month by fasting and reading the Bible, and praying “all day every day.” And then he makes music. 

BabyChiefDoIt says he’s spent a year on this album, which makes it the longest time he’s ever spent working on a project. But in some ways, it’s been longer than that. He says he wrote “Game Six” when he was just a freshman in high school, and three of the 17 songs on RAMBO are from a long time ago. He’s reluctant to be impressed with his own music, but he’ll pat himself on the back for RAMBO. “This project is really like ‘You did your big one on this one,’” he admits. 

His claim isn't a lazy product description. He says he starts with an idea he pounces on quickly, but he usually returns to polish it. He notes that “Game Six” features some live instrumentation because he wanted it to “feel bigger.” He either produced or co-produced a few songs on the LP. He says his songwriting’s got more depth, too, even if he insists his sound is as energetic as ever. To date, BabyChiefDoIt’s catalog has skewed playfully menacing. But, inspired in part by seeing the way fans responded to YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s Los Angeles performance, he’s decided to open up.

 “What I really realized was that a lot of the people feel his music so deeply because it’s from a really vulnerable place,” says BabyChiefDoIt, who remembers having a 38 Baby phone case years ago. “And I feel like that’s healing to others. So, I kinda took a vow to vulnerability in my music.” 

“I feel like God gave me a second chance at life to make this project,” he says. “So I really had to just give it my all."

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