Lil Baby (real name Dominique Armani Jones) is a rapper from Atlanta. His birthday is Dec. 3, 1994. His first album to crack the Billboard 200 was the 2017 mixtape ‘Too Hard,’ which peaked at No. 80. From there, his debut studio album, ‘Harder Than Ever,’ reached No. 3 in 2018, while its lead single, “Southside,” peaked at No. 79 on the Hot 100. Subsequent studio albums ‘My Turn’ (2020) and ‘It’s Only Me’ (2022) have topped the Billboard 200, while his singles and collaborations have earned him multiple spots in the Hot 100’s top 10, among them his work with collaborators Drake, Gunna, Da Baby, Pop Smoke, Nicki Minaj and J. Cole. The rapper’s work on Kanye West’s “Hurricane” earned him his first Grammy, a win for best melodic rap performance, in 2022.
Inside the headquarters of Quality Control, the most successful hip-hop label currently operating in Atlanta and home to Migos, City Girls, and Lil Yachty, three green dice bounce against the wooden floor. Baby, born Dominique Jones, is a patient and methodical teacher, calmly answering my inane questions about throwing technique. Every time he throws the dice he snaps his fingers, trying to will the numbers to his cause. “The object of the game is to get two of these [dice] the same,” Baby says. For example, the young rapper rolls a 4-4-2 and explains that his score would be two. There are additional rules: 4-5-6 is an automatic win, so is rolling two matching numbers and one 6; 1-2-3 is an automatic loss.
It’s complicated, but under Baby’s tutelage I — eventually — win $200, and reach for the pair of hundreds on the floor. That’s when Baby breaks into a grin. “Guess what?” he says. “They got to hit the wall.”
“I told you,” he says with a smirk. I maintain that he never told me, and look to his crew for support that never comes. Baby offers no leeway.
“You got to just keep shooting,” he says.
Within a couple of seconds, all of the money returns to Baby’s hands. Satisfied, he packs the dice up while finishing a blunt the size of Kawhi Leonard’s middle finger. As ashes hit the floor, Kevin “Coach K” Lee, the founder and COO of Quality Control, appears, as if endowed with a sixth sense for moments when Baby might say something that will land him in trouble. Baby is detailing a night when acquaintances chipped in money in hopes of seeing one of his winning streaks up close, the type that would leave everyone chasing him across the city to win their cash back. To this day, he says, he still hasn’t paid certain parties back from the nights when his hot hand went cold. It’s not because he doesn’t have the funds to give, he assures the room. It’s merely the principle of the matter.
