There are so few worthy Detroit rap stars these days: You’ve got a complete and utter cornball in Big Sean, who has ambitions of being Kendrick Lamar but possess about a quarter of the talent; Tee Grizzley, whose output has yielded diminishing returns since surprise radio hit “First Day Out”; and of course Eminem, a man who has basically pissed away what little good faith he had left with his last few trash albums. Suffice to say, the city needs new blood — and so, enter Sada Baby, an eccentric (to put it mildly) smack talker from the East side of the city who’s as likely to spit some insane boast (pick your favorite from his latest mixtape, Bartier Bounty, but I’ll go with: “Pull up on your fam, dump my mag in your birthplace”) as he is to break out into some insane dance to out-stunt everyone in the room (“I will do a Harlem Shake with the Draco”).
Sada’s appeal is his unpredictability; his rapping is exciting for just how reckless it can get, as he swerves through tracks of energetic bluster (“Skuba Says”), G-funk swagger (“On Gang”), and anger-fueled bravado (“Unkle Drew”). Unfortunately, the rapper’s also prone to missteps: he openly admits at one point that he “ain’t Meek Mill or Drake, nah / But I fuck with both of them,” a sentiment he takes too far when he tries to bite the 6 God’s flow on “Aunty Melody.” He also has a tendency for going a little bit too overboard sometimes, like his distasteful claim that he’s “gettin’ higher than Mac Miller” or that he should be called “Skuba R. Kelly” because his diamonds glisten like urine. But almost always, Sada Baby’s intense charisma and crazed delivery add up to an artist who demands attention.
Published as part of What Would Meek Do? | Issue 6
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