Photo credit: G Shot/ "Perception is reality at the end of the day"
Breaking away from the cliquish and uncompromising trend that seems to corrode Charlotte's music scene, young Jonathon Kirk(DaBaby), created an amplified sound that’s projecting on college campuses and mainstream radio frequently.
DaBaby recently changed his artist name. Although he bears the previous moniker, “Baby Jesus," he stated that the name is an alternative for anyone that feels uncomfortable saying the surname as it could offend people…. “I don’t want the name to keep me from any listeners,” he said.
“I feel like the music and the movement is bigger than all that. I want people’s grandparents to listen to it. I don’t want people to be reluctant in letting their kids listen to my songs.”
The forename might’ve pigeon-holed the talented artist as he predicted, because since the adjustment, DaBaby hit thousands of downloads on the national Billboards, ranking at a #5 in the top #10 for the most popular transferred song. His cult hit, “Light Show,” dominated airwaves on the east and west coast.
DaBaby is actually a traditional wild card. He wasn’t always a rapper, and he indicated that he just started making music about twenty-three months ago.
“I just got bored with everything I was doing and the lifestyle I was living. I was out here wasting time and not doing what I was doing, and probably setting myself up for failure.
At twenty-one, I was already living like a rapper, and I wasn’t satisfied with that,” he said.
“I felt like I needed to be doing more—that wasn’t my purpose and it wasn’t my calling. I started rapping and it took off.
Music is all I have,” he said.
DaBaby linked up with South Coast Music Group after making consistent music independently.
Together, the team helped curate a brand for the already booming artist, making him next to unstable in the music business.
The freestyle artist doesn’t write lyrics or keep taglines scribbled on his hand while in the studio…
“I prefer to have my beats made in front of me. I like my stuff natural and one-hundred-percent authentic. Sometimes, the music is made in front of me and other times, people send me beats. I just listen to it, and boom, I go make something.
I get frustrated sometimes, and I can’t even deal with it for weeks and months—I have to feel it, and it has to take me there.”
DaBaby released his newest mixtape. The disk is filled with crafty and flamboyant hooks. On his single “The Wave,” his lyrics “B**ch I’m the wave, you betta catch-- I’m dripping in flavor, feels like I’m walking on water,” displays the acidity within his word flow.“God's Work: Resurrected.”
The EP is free on Soundcloud… DaBaby felt that allowing complete access to his music is the logical thing to do. “In the early stages of your career—people trip me out when they try to sell their CD’s in front of the store,” he said.
“You gotta give your music away and make people want to listen to you. You can’t expect someone to just up and pay for your music. You gotta crawl before you can walk. You can’t walk up to a stadium with a football in your hand and say ‘I wanna play for the Panthers.’ Noooo, you gotta go to school and play for the college. They gotta see you, want you, and draft you,” he resounded.
DaBaby is more of an intellectual than people realizes. He’s a high school graduate, who actually attended college for about two-years.
He promotes education and recommends that artist remain edified so that they can know what’s going on with the business side of things.
Photo credit G Shot
His support system is superior. “I love my supporters. I have a great support system around me. I gotta credit my support because I got a lot of people around me that are all about what I do. They believe in me, in the way that I believe in myself, and it takes that to be great.
I’d be lying to say that it didn’t. But, in doing it, you have to come in with the mentality that ‘By all means. I’m gonna get it done.’ My support system is so strong that they see how focused and how headstrong I am. They respect it, and they are all in too.
DaBaby said that he hopes he’s doing the unthinkable in the next coming years.
“It’s just like two-years from today, I wasn’t thinking about becoming a rapper.
Two-years from now, I want to be in amazement. I want to be at the Grammy's and doing other things. I don’t set limits for myself.... I set goals.” he said.
You can catch DaBaby on major radio networks, touring, and doing what he was destined to do-- entertain the masses.
Social network handles:
https://www.facebook.com/babyjesus704/?fref=ts
@DababyJesus704