Baby Fifty: “Stop Barrin on the Men”
The spooky, percussion-heavy beats that dominate DMV street rap are usually so formulaic that any time one is slightly different, it throws me off completely. For example: TrapMoneyBiggie’s instrumental for “Stop Barrin on the Men” (no idea what that title even means), which lays the traditional sputtering drums over a wonky sample that sounds like a DMV crank producer scoring an adaptation of an Agatha Christie murder mystery. (TrapMoneyBiggie is actually from the Netherlands. It increasingly feels like the Netherlands and Scandinavia birth underground rap producers the way North Carolina does basketball players.) The beat is so evocative that all D.C.’s Baby Fifty has to do is keep the eerie mood intact, which he does with a motor-mouthed, slightly off-track delivery that makes straightforward hostility sound like casting a spell.
With artists releasing songs at a fast and furious pace, it’s difficult for the average hip-hop head to keep track of it all—no matter how tapped in they are. That’s why we created The Ones, a daily post to highlight the song you need to hear.
Check out previous Ones, and listen to new rap from Baby Fifty and more on our Spotify playlist.
