Artist: Baby Keem

Runtime: 16 songs • 53 minutes

Genre: Hip-Hop/Rap

Released: 2021

The Melodic Blue is the debut studio album by American rapper and record producer Baby Keem. It was released on September 10, 2021, by PGLang and Columbia Records, with Keem serving as the executive producer.

What does an MC from Las Vegas sound like? Itʼs a funny question to not have an obvious answer for in 2021, but one that seems that much sillier when you consider who it is that will likely become one of the cityʼs first reference points. Across his debut album The Melodic Blue, 20-year-old Vegas native Baby Keem sounds firstly like a combination of his biggest influences (Kanye West, Kid Cudi, Kendrick Lamar), but also, maybe more notably, like he could be from anywhere, because thatʼs what an emergent MC sounds like in 2021.

What other emergent MCs donʼt have, however, are Keemʼs dedication to airing out multiple flows over the course of a single song, his gift for spellbinding non sequitur, or the fearlessness with which he approaches song-making. They likely arenʼt cousins with Kendrick Lamar either, but if Lamarʼs scarcity between projects tells us anything, itʼs that heʼs not stepping to the mic for just anybody. In fact, it is Lamar who sounds like heʼs doing his best to keep up with Keem over the course of their The Melodic Blue collaborations (“range brothers”, “family ties”).

But keeping up with Keem is no easy task. Heʼs hilarious, even when heʼs trying to get a point across (“I must confess, I am a mess, I cannot fix it/Lil baby thick, Margiela sweats, look at my dick print,” he raps on “vent”), and he switches flows so often youʼd think he had some kind of tic.

The albumʼs only other guests are Travis Scott (“durag activity”) and Don Toliver (“cocoa”). Which just leaves that much more room for Keem to dance across octaves, drop into a whisper, deadpan, shift to double-time and sing, all of which he does over the course of just “trademark usa”.

One song into his debut and Keem has unloaded a display so excessive that a forward-thinking manager might ask him to save something for a deluxe version. But thereʼs not likely much you could say to someone tasked with putting Las Vegas back on the map.

Finally, the new body of work houses 16 solid tracks.

Baby Keem – The Melodic Blue Album Tracklist below; 

1. trademark usa
2. pink panties
3. scapegoats
4. range brothers (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
5. issues
6. gorgeous
7. south africa
8. lost souls
9. cocoa (feat. Don Toliver)
10. family ties (feat. Kendrick Lamar)
11. scars
12. durag activity (feat. Travis Scott)
13. booman
14. first order of business
15. vent
16. 16