The patient hustle of Babyface Ray’s The Kid That Did

The final track on The Kid That Did opens with a spoken word interlude by Adele fiancé and LeBron James agent extraordinaire Rich Paul. From non-believer to achiever, watch me change how they receive us. From there “The World Is Yours” unfurls at a pensive scroll as Babyface Ray peers in the rearview. “Look how they doubted me,” he scoffs. “I came back on these n****s, thought they’d be proud of me / I was raised by real ones, real one I gotta be.”

This retrospection defines and refines The Kid That Did, an album preoccupied with the canonization of Babyface Ray. Ten years on from Young Wavy, the solo tape that coalesced Ray’s style following an extended stint as part of the city’s legendary Team Eastside, Ray has little left to prove as a musician, but he’s never notched the same commercial success as contemporaries like Tee Grizzley and Sada Baby; his biggest hit to date was promptly repurposed into an even bigger hit. His fourth studio album attempts to rectify the record, positioning Ray as a behind-the-scenes impresario, avoiding the limelight out of professional expediency instead of inability.

This can be a tricky impulse to thread — consider recent albums by Latto or Travis Scott and the perils of shooting for the history books become obvious. But Ray’s deliberate flows and stylistic focus keep proceedings firmly on track, whether one-upping G Herbo’s street warfare on “2 for 6” or wistfully asserting that he’s “crashing out when it come to family just like Toretto” on “Million Dollar Baby.” Some rappers have to shout to be heard: Ray knows everyone will lean in close when he whispers.

At times, these songs can feel like a high-wire balancing act between Babyface Ray’s Instagrammably haughty flexes and contemplative diary dispatches. At the latter extreme, Rexx Life Raj’s ululating falsetto on “Guardian Angel” spurs a brooding verse where Ray can’t quite outpace the past, admitting, “I overreacted, second-guessing, think it’s the trauma;” and the atmospheric pulse of “Nights like This” proffers a spare arena for Ray to shadowbox as his chains clink and clang in the booth. Babyface Ray consistently tilts more stoic than sentimental, but his sanguine outlook seems to reflect Sisyphean joy versus emotional stuntedness, the output of an artist who can find joy in the process as well as the product.

Time and again, Babyface Ray zooms in on the minor joys of daily grinds both economic and emotional. That helps sell more maudlin tracks like “High Off Life” and “Legacy,” which gesture at the regal triumph of Rick Ross, and underpins the poignant resonance of more vulnerable tracks. Take the studied guitar twangs of DJ Esco-produced “Cherish:” Ray meets the instrumental with a gently melodic breeze of a verse, twisting flexes into less-braggadocious forms. The high price of codeine prompts consideration of lean addicts going broke for their vices; telling a woman to leave her boyfriend (“can’t do lame shit forever”) scans like genuine advice, rather than a self-interested come-on.

Then there’s the mid-album highlight “Delusional” with Hunxho, where Babyface Ray briefly considers falling in love. “You ain’t perfect but beautiful / I got some bruises too,” he coos, vocals lightly dredged in AutoTune. His amorous melodies are freakishly smooth, to the point that Hunxho’s presence here seems almost superfluous. Almost — the Greensboro, NC singer has been on an incredible feature run in 2024, and his turn here is no different. The topic of love recurs earnestly elsewhere, tied to Ray’s unwillingness to trust others and his evident desire for genuine connection, but “Delusional” sounds truly unfettered, like sneaking a peek at someone else’s valentine.

While the back half of The Kid That Did is characterized by midtempo rumination, the album kicks off with a suite of higher-energy rap tracks certain to satisfy fans of Babyface Ray bars. His elastic flows stretch and snap across “Rubberband Man,” stopping and starting like rush hour traffic. “I'm in H. Lorenzo / the shit I cop could've put down for a benzo / She keep fuckin' lame n****s, put her in the friend zone.” The successes of “Shy Kid,” from overseas recognition to splurging out at Louis Vuitton, aren’t quite unblemished: “Mr. Thuggin' Out The Corner Suite” still tallies up the smoking fees paid out, the overdoses in his neighborhood, the declining bars of 5G when your home is big enough to block cell service.

Unsurprisingly, Babyface Ray loosens up the most around his zaniest collaborators. Team Eastside mentor Peezy barrels through “Ghetto Boyz,” smirking “Boy, get off my dick 'cause you ain't got no cheese / Made a half a mil' at home, I ain't have to leave,” as Ray adlibs; Bossman Dlow’s Tallahassee baritone is a booming counterpoint to Ray’s creeping verse, cannonballing through the James Bond theme on “Count Money.” Taken alongside the contractually refracted fragment of Britney Spears’s “Toxic” animating Veeze feature “Wavy Navy University” and the album’s #TBT promotional trailer, which sees a young Ray watching Jay-Z on TV in 2001 before becoming a televised star himself by 2024, The Kid That Did brings to mind an image of Babyface Ray slouched over a couch by Versace or Hermes, channel surfing from MTV to TNT while waiting for his burner phone to ring.

The fifth track on The Kid That Did opens with a devotional. You never promised me days without pain, but you did promise me the strength for those days. Instead of teeing up a cutting verse of introspection, “I Need Some Motivation” erupts with jangling piano, and Ray slides into the pocket with abandon, beaming about standing on couches and the spectrum of colors produced when cameras flash against the diamonds on his neck and wrist. “Ooh theses n****s hating on your baby cuz he come from nothing,” he murmurs on the first verse — the negative attention is a tiny aside, hardly worth the annoyance. Having achieved his childhood dreams of rap stardom, Babyface Ray wants everything that comes with greatness, even the problems: he used to pray for times like this.