DaBaby dropped one of the dopest projects of 2025 when he released his latest mixtape, Please Say DaBaby Vol. 1., on April 24. However, the project failed to make a considerable blip on the rap radar. But why?
The North Carolina rapper has quietly been on a run recently. While we haven’t gotten an official album from him since 2022’s Baby on Baby 2, in the past year, he’s been ripping freestyle after freestyle. In 2024, he put out the project How TF Is This a Mixtape?, adding more momentum for the much-maligned rapper’s official comeback album. In March, he appeared on a livestream with DDG and dropped impressive bars, with one freestyle being released as the collab “Motion.”
DaBaby being back in his bag culminated with the release of Please Say DaBaby Vol. 1 last week. The project finds the rapper taking it back to the DatPiff era with a jackin’ for beats mixtape, reminiscent of the golden age of the tape game or Lil Wayne’s 2005-2015 mixtape frenzy. DaBaby even name-drops Tune on the project’s first song. “I grew up on Wayne, and I’m the best f**king rapper. Let’s go,” Baby says.
DaBaby spends the next 14 songs proving why he was once in consideration. He spits fire on popular tracks like Gelo’s “Tweaker,” Drake’s “Nokia,” Kendrick Lamar’s “Squabble Up,” Rob49’s “WTHELLY” and more on the 15-song release, talking big sh*t the entire way.
Why haven’t you probably heard the mixtape? There are a few factors. For one, it was not released on DSPs and instead put out on the platform LiveMixtapes. A move typically done during the mixtape era to avoid sample clearances. Another factor is timing. DaBaby released the mixtape on the day Young Thug announced his highly anticipated return to music with the single “Money on Money” with Future, which is what most hip-hop fans were highly tuned into that day.
Additionally, DaBaby is in a strange spot in his career. He was one of the hottest rappers in the rap game in 2020, even surpassing Drake in monthly Spotify listeners the following May. However, during his Rolling Loud Miami 2021 performance that summer, he made a homophobic statement on stage that has altered the trajectory of his career. In 2023, he called the moment a blessing in disguise.
Admittedly pigeonholed by his past ills, Baby has been rapping his a*s off in an attempt to bounce back to his former glory and trying to grow up in the process. The talent is still there. And his latest mixtape proves it.
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Check out DaBaby’s new mixtape below.
