Lil Baby says he’s “not rich enough for everybody” as he opens up about financial pressure from family and friends who still face hardship.
Lil Baby has hit songs, superstar status and a life far removed from where he started. The phone calls from home have not stopped.
Complex reported that the Atlanta rapper discussed that tension during an Oct. 30 appearance on the New York Times’ Popcast, describing how ongoing requests for money from friends and relatives keep him uncomfortably close to the struggles he left behind.
He framed it with a familiar saying. Even after reaching the level of success he has, Lil Baby noted that you can take someone out of the hood without taking the hood out of them. He no longer has to be physically present in those circumstances, he explained, but hearing about them on the phone from people he knows means he can still write about them honestly.
Then he drew the line plainly. “I’m rich, but I’m not rich enough for everybody,” he said. “I made it out. But my friends and my family are still in the same situation, same living conditions.”
The piece people misunderstand most, he said, is scale. A cousin asking for $2,000 sees one modest request from someone with money. What that cousin does not see is everyone else making the same ask. “They don’t count the 2,000 more people who need $2,000,” Lil Baby explained.
He suggested the gap is sometimes less about understanding than willingness. Even when he shares, he said, some people only view the situation through what he can do for them.
That pressure is common among artists who come from communities where they are the first to break through financially. One success can become a lifeline for an entire extended family, and the expectations rarely shrink as the requests multiply.
Another Southern rapper is trying a structural solution. BigXThaPlug said on “Club Shay Shay” this week that he plans to build a 150-acre family compound in Texas, designed to consolidate housing and utility costs in one place. He described the alternative as a steady stream of calls about mortgages, rent and light and gas bills. Covering everything at once, he said, removes one burden from his shoulders.
“I gotta do it,” BigXThaPlug said. “It’s gon’ be less on me.”
Lil Baby’s situation is messier than that. The same hardships that drain him financially also keep his music rooted in real stories, a connection he acknowledged he does not entirely want to lose.
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