R&B/Hip-Hop

It’s been six days and I can’t stop listening to “Groupies & Goofies.”
Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night and play it on my phone a couple times before going back to sleep. It’s one of the best rap album intros of the year, right up there with the opening tracks of Future & Metro Boomin’s back-to-back collaborative albums. I didn’t know what to expect when Babyface Ray‘s team sent me his latest album, The Kid That Did, but I was immediately grabbed by the intro.

After diving into the rest of the album, I came away thinking that this is the Detroit rapper’s most ambitious project to date. He sounds confident, and with confidence comes big swings. Songs like “I Need Some Motivation” and “Delusional” showcase his versatility, while others like “Watching My Page” and “Nights Like This” “Legacy” show more of his personal side.

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Ray has been prolific over the course of his decade-long career, releasing a slew of mixtapes and EPs as a solo artist and as a member of Team Eastside. The Kid That Did, released on September 13, is his fourth solo album and his first since his Wavy Gang label entered a partnership with Empire earlier this year. With 20 tracks clocking in at under an hour, the album’s already spawned six singles with accompanying videos with more on the way. One notable single is “Count Money,” with BossMan Dlow, which samples the iconic pause music from N64’s GoldenEye 007. “We got the original composer from GoldenEye to do the beat over,” he answers when asked how they managed to get the sample cleared. But there’s much more to the story.

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According to one of his A&Rs, Dre Edwards, Babyface Ray’s team had a hard time clearing the beat (made by producer Rich Treeze), so they decided to reach out to Grant Kirkhope, the original composer of the GoldenEye soundtrack, to see if they could get it cleared. Well, it turns out that Kirkhope was already familiar with Ray’s music and gladly offered to collaborate with Treeze to make a version of the beat that would work for all parties involved. He even posted the video on his Instagram.

I caught up with Ray at the Billboard‘s New York office, where we talked about the making of what is probably the most important album of his career, how his rap style is informed by his parents and how he managed to get Rich Paul on the outro. Check out the interview below.

This album feels like your most ambitious. There are some records that feel big on there. Would you agree? 

Yeah, big for sure. I know what you mean. I was just trying to show a little more growth this time and make it sound different from the last projects I put out.

When you were making this album, did you go in with the approach that this was going to be an ambitious record? 

I think the records I picked were just more along the lines of what you’re saying. I had other records that I wanted to use, but I went more with that type of style.

Yeah, because some of the beats are different from the stuff you usually rap over. Were you aiming for that sound? Or were they beats that you were coming across that happened to grab your attention? 

Yeah, what I was coming across and what I felt like wanting to do at that time.

Detroit has had its rap moments with the likes of Eminem, Royce Da 5’9″, D12, and J Dilla, but the last few years have felt different. What is it about this era of Detroit rap that resonates with fans? 

Probably the rawness. Probably being able to connect with the music a little bit more.

What are some of your favorite records from this album? 

“Nights Like This,” “High Off Life,” the intro. I like “Delusional.” I like “Stuck in My Ways.” There’s a few on there.

There’s a couple of tracks that you get real personal on. You mentioned a couple of them. Can you talk about why you felt the need to go super personal on some of those? 

Really, just updating people on what’s going on with me type stuff. And, really on all my projects, it’s always gonna be a song on there that’s kind of like super personal and I get deeper on what’s going on for real.

The way you rap, it’s like you put people on game. Can you credit your style to your father being a preacher? 

Yeah, if you know my dad, it don’t got nothing to do with religion or him being a preacher. That’s just how he comes off, putting us on game and just schoolin’ us and kickin’ it with us since we were little. I can definitely credit that to him, for sure.

Did you spend a lot of time in church when you were younger? 

Hell yeah. All the way up until eighth grade, I went to church every Sunday. I wasn’t really too much a fan of church, though. Nothing against religion, but the whole going to church thing — I would just feel burnt out.

Did your parents give you a hard time for wanting to be a rapper at first? 

They ain’t know. So, it was like — once I got old enough to get out the house and do my own thing, I was just doin’ that on the low. But I wasn’t a bad kid, so they didn’t have to worry about me too much. I was just doing it. They didn’t really find out until I became poppin’. And then people was telling them, and by that time, it was already too late. They couldn’t really have a conversation with me about it.

How do they feel about it now that you’re successful? 

I mean, they ain’t trippin’, they love it, and even my dad, he be talking about it. You know, back then he really didn’t understand, but now he sees what I’ve grown into as a man. He can understand and enjoy my music. He can see where I’m coming from.

When would you say you felt that you was poppin’ as a rapper? When it felt real. 

My first feeling was around probably 2011 or 2012. We used to get booked in the city a lot with my group [Team Eastside.]

In earlier interviews you had mentioned that you dropped out of college. Around what year was that? 

I graduated [high school] in 2009, so it had to be around 2010.

That’s around the time you said you started poppin’, so you were already rapping? 

I was already rappin’ throughout high school and all that stuff. When I got out of school, I was still staying with my parents. My pops was like, “You either gonna get a job or you gonna go to school.” So, I ended up choosing college and when that didn’t work out I just left the house completely.

Word, and you had said that they used church money to help send you to college.

Yeah, for sure. No cap. That really happened.

Rich Paul is on the outro. Can you explain that relationship? How did you guys link up? Was he a fan of your music? 

He was a fan of my music. I met him through my partner, V, who owns a clothing line called Jack Ripp. He called me and connected me with Rich Paul, and then we hit it off just conversating about music. He really just wanted to talk about music, for real.

Has he given you any business advice? 

Not really, head on. I just watch and learn from what he’s doing.

How do you feel about this album compared to your other tapes? 

I feel good. I feel like I got some good records on there. I think people are gonna enjoy it. I’m geeked for it to get out, so I can see how the feedback is going to be.

Gillie and Wallo had mentioned that they noticed the ladies rock with your music on social media. Explain why you like to make records for them. 

It’s always good to have a record or two for the ladies when you put a project out, because they’re consumers. And, really, I feel like it’s the women that get the men hip sometimes. You gotta have something that the ladies enjoy too.

Bossman Dlow seems to have that effect too. The ladies use his stuff on social media all the time. He did a show with Teezo for us recently and when he hit the stage, mad shorties ran to see him perform.  

That’s fire. Dlow got a strong presence on social media with the women. I feel like the women be on it more than the men these days.

And you guys linked up on this project over the GoldenEye beat. How did that come about? 

I had never met him. I was on Live one time just poppin’ shit and I said something along the lines [of] somebody talking to me in the club while the music was loud, and I was saying, ‘Stop trying to talk to me, Bossman Dlow is playing’ blah, blah, blah. And then it reached him and that kind of went crazy and he said something to me, and he came to Detroit, and we met up. We kicked it off like that. I did a song for him first, and then I was sitting on “Count Money” and I was like, ‘I think Dlow would sound good on here.’ I sent it to him and he sent it back.

You’re a video game head, right? What games do you play? 

2K, Madden, NCAA. But I had woke up from my sleep, and seen my kids watching some s–t on YouTube, and I ended up downloading this new game called Little Nightmares. S–t fire. It’s like some horror-mystery shit.

You don’t play Grand Theft Auto? 

I used to play Grand Theft Auto RP on my PC, but I stopped playing it. l was gettin’ burnt out on it.

You weren’t in Tee Grizzley’s world? 

Yeah, I was in there. I was the only one with the Ferrari truck in there. That s–t turnt, for real, but I was getting burnt out. 

What else you got planned for this album? You going on tour? 

Yeah, I’m going on tour. I’m announcing the tour on Friday with the album [release]. That’s pretty much it. Hopefully, I can get a deluxe out because I do got some more records, more features, some more vibes that I wanna add to it.

You gonna put out more videos? 

For sure, 100 percent. 

Yeah, because you put out mad s–t already for this album. 

S–t, I was just telling them. I got like seven videos already in, but I’m still trying to get at least two or three more.