The Melodic Blue by Baby Keem | Album Review
A solid start for the Vegas MC
In a world where there seems to be a new rapper sprouting up every other day, it’s hard to keep up or at the very least, keep your listener’s attention before moving on to the next trending artist. Baby Keem is a rapper who seems disinterested in that, rather he carves his own path, and those who find him stick with his music. Keem has become an underground star that is slowly rising up to the top and is gaining more popularity. Whether it be his 2019 breakthrough Die for My Bitch, his feature on Kanye’s Donda or a co-sign from his cousin, Kendrick Lamar.
Aside from contributions for big artists, you’ve got to prove that you’re bigger than just a feature that’ll get overshadowed, or an XXL Freshman that gets forgotten about months after. Luckily, Baby Keem shows no signs of falling off. His new album The Melodic Blue showcases his raw artistry with his style of rap that sets him out from his contemporaries while seeing him explore outside of his comfort zone, all while capturing a vibe that is equal parts melancholic and chaotic. It does miss its mark here and there, but the bad gets quickly overthrown by the good.
Putting Baby Keem in the box of this new wave of rappers like Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, Gunna, etc. is tough because of his style. In 2019’s Die for My Bitch, he jumped between trap bangers (“Orange Soda”, “Mosh Pit”) and alternative influenced ballads (“Honest”, “My Ex”). On Blue, Keem makes it hard to distinguish his style as he experiments a bit with more melodies and singing, toeing the line between auto-tuned crooning and some heavy-hitting ear ringers.
The production here is varied, and to be honest, carries the entire project. The Melodic Blue is a spacey atmosphere full of washed-out synths, booming bass, and distorted beats, the opener “trademark usa” checks all those boxes at once. While songs such as “issues”, “scars” and, “16” revel in their muted, Kanye 808’s era sound. Others such as “gorgeous” tap into this decade’s style of trap with woozy instrumentals and catchy hooks.
The guest features here are also highly noteworthy. Travis Scott comes through on the infectious “durag activity”. Fellow Cactus Jack signee Don Toliver provides bars on “cocoa”, taking his time to cleverly allude to the song’s title (“I just ate lil’ baby up, shawty taste like cocoa.”). More importantly are the contributions made by Keem’s cousin Kendrick Lamar, who appears on 3 of the total 16 tracks. I already talked about “family ties” and K.Dot’s impeccable verse, but in the second half of “range brothers”, Kendrick acts like Keem’s older brother giving him advice on what to watch out for with stardom. (“Life ain’t always about your name in they mouth and the cars and the clothes and the jewels. Every lil’ bitch that’s born looking like soft porn Only meant for your ego to bruise.”), and provides ad-libs on the rage-inducing “vent”.
As a rapper, Keem rides every beat and switches flows seamlessly. He finds a new rhythm with every verse and constantly changes his flow to keep listeners on their toes throughout bangers like “range brothers”, going from auto-tune inflected hooks straight into a triplet flow, effortlessly. As a singer, Keems uses his high-pitched voice to sound somewhat vulnerable, it carries a sense of innocence on songs like the aforementioned “scars” and “issues”, where Keem sounds very honest with his drab tone of voice.
Keem is becoming a master at catching a vibe, and The Melodic Blue drives that idea forward throughout its 54-minute runtime. His ideals of relationships and heartbreak are childlike, but carry that infectious fun that’s found in the music of his fellow artists. Such as his entanglement escapades on “pink panties” (“Put my soul in these condoms, spent time, lil’ bitch laid up at the crib on some Seinfeld shit.”). As mentioned earlier, he’s also good at creating mosh-inducing hype. Never is that more apparent on “vent” where Keem sets the bar straight on his traitors (“Fuck all the rats, if you confess, that is a big hit, huh. Fuck all the rats, if you confess, it get addressed, bitch”) Over the booming drums and heavy synths.
A majority of the album sees Baby Keem a lot more contemplative, a side he’s touched on but never fully fleshed out. He faces his inner demons throughout “issues”, where he tells his problems to somebody (a missing father, family member) on the song’s hook: (“How could I resent you? Demons, they test you, Grandma and I missed you. You don’t know what we been through.”). Keem sounds like a broken child all grown and coming to terms with his problems. He asks God why those he loves end up leaving on “scars”, more or less blaming God for his countless heartbreaks and confusion.
He’s not all melancholic, as he parades his new girlfriend throughout “gorgeous” and gives his thanks to everything around him on “first order of business” (“First order of business, dawg, I gotta thank my mama. Second order of business, share the blessings, no more trauma.”). Love is still very much on his mind, or rather the loss of love as Keem ends the album with the pop-inflected “16”, a goodbye of sorts. His words bleed with the confusion a 20-year-old like him would have about love, and his verse: (“My mama mad at me, I know I fucked up big, my girl mad at me, I know I fucked up big. What’s love? I guess I’ll never understand.”) seems to illustrate that perfectly.
The Melodic Blue is not without its faults, however. Throughout the album, Keem’s use of autotune gets borderline cringe, like his impression of Future’s “King’s Dead” sound on “range brothers”, as well as the nonsensical (and meme-able) last third of the same song featuring one of Kendrick’s worst hooks to date. There’s also a few songs that seem like throwaways, namely “south africa” and “booman” which could’ve easily been traded in for one of Keem’s earlier singles such as “hooligans”, “sons & critics freestyle” or “no sense”, which unfortunately didn’t make the final cut, and could’ve benefitted the album.
All and all, I wasn’t disappointed with Baby Keem’s debut album. Sure some things don’t exactly mesh well together, but it most definitely set the bar for the type of rapper Keem is shaping up to be, and the music he’ll be making for years to come.
The Melodic Blue gets a 7/10. It’s an overall fun album that captures Keem’s ability to create a vibe that’ll get you jumping from couch to couch one moment, and reflecting on life the next. Top that off with some fairly good features that don’t steal the limelight, and you’ve got a pretty solid album from the Las Vegas MC. This new album is Keem finally putting his foot in the door, and it’s only a matter of time before he finally makes his way in.
Favourite Tracks: trademark usa, pink panties, range brothers, issues, gorgeous, family ties, durag activity, first order of business, vent, 16.
