By many measures, Lil Baby is currently the most well-known rapper in the world. Even with albums from rappers like Drake or pop musicians like the Weeknd to compete with, he has the most streamed album in the nation this year.

In 2017, after his mixtape Perfect Timing was released, he gained widespread recognition.  "Yes Indeed", a song which he produced with drake on his first studio album, Harder Than Ever (2018), arrived at the top 10 single on the Billboard Hot 100.

But before all these, before Lil Baby dropped tracks like 'freestyle', 'all of a sudden' and 'My dawg', before forming his own label '4 pockets full' and working with the likes of lil yachty, young thug, gunna, young scooter, lil dick and gucci mane....

 ...before he quit lean, got out of jail and committed himself to releasing four full mixtapes in just one year, lil baby grew up in the same neighborhood as young thug and the founders of quality control music, these are friends constantly encouraged him to get into the rap game.



Lil Baby, who was born into poverty, had a different side hustle. He found ways to make serious money by robbing, selling drugs, and gambling. Even though he entered that life before reaching puberty, the results were quite disastrous. 

Before the age of twelve, he developed a lean addiction, lost a lot of friends, and spent time in and out of jail. Then, one day, something made baby decide to make a change in his life.

Without further ado, let's uncover the early life and career of Lil baby before he became famous.

Lil Baby was born Dominique Armani Jones on December 3rd, 1994. He grew up in southwest Atlanta and is still influenced by southern rappers like Young Jeezy and T.I. Additionally, he grew up in the same area and attended high school with his close friend Jeffrey Lamar Williams, also known as Young Thug.

Pierre 'Pee' Thompson, a co-founder of Quality Control Music, is also a native of the area, and Kevin 'Coach K' Lee, is the other founder who has known Lil Baby for a very long time. 

Dominique and his two sisters were raised by a single mother. His mom would struggle to make ends meet, and his dad was never a part of his life. The hardest moment dominique can recall was when, upon returning home from school, he met his family outside as they were being evicted. 

He was known as Lil baby because, at the age of 10, he was hanging out with guys who were in their late teens. So as the baby of the crew, he was called Lil Baby. Most likely, the older boys weren't always the best role models. He began taking lean at the age of 12 or 13, a habit that would later turn into an addiction and cost him almost $20,000 every month. 

Additionally, he was just 12 years old when he was placed in juvenile detention for the first time and ended up behind bars. According to him, he was imprisoned for roughly 10 days for burglary—or possibly attempted robbery. He and two of his companions were apprehended while attempting to break into a house. Following his brief incarceration, Lil Baby carried on his hustling in the streets.

Despite being an exceptional student in the classroom, he frequently got into problems and eventually dropped out of high school. At pa time, they briefly moved him to an alternative school, but he ultimately concluded it wasn't worth his time and gave up on his quest for a degree. 

Little Baby never considered rap as a career option despite being known for his swagger and gambling prowess. Little Baby was frequently encouraged by his peers to pursue a career in hip-hop.

In an interview, he admitted to XXL that many people are unaware of the fact that he never imagined becoming a rapper. Many people, he claimed, had predicted that he would one day be successful, but Baby continued to sell drugs at that time rather than pursuing hip-hop like some of his peers. It wasp free, easy money, but soon he would face some major repercussions.


He admitted to the New York Times that he had experienced all of the undesirable aspects of the street. He claimed that he had gone through a lot and never experienced anything positive in life.

The most recent prison term for Lil Baby started with a crime he committed when he was 16 or 17 years old. He wouldn't succeed in changing his ways, though, as he kept racking up charges involving narcotics and firearms. 

When Lil Baby was only 18 or 19 years old in 2015, he was imprisoned. Initially, his attorney was able to enroll him in a special program that would have allowed him to serve his sentence over a shorter period of time—six months or probably a year—but that program was harsh, and while he was there, Lil Baby got into a fight with an older white racist. Baby was sentenced to two years in a more conventional prison after the battle, but he believed he got off easy.

He claims that going to prison changed him. He began to develop patience there and decided he should finally heed the counsel of his former friends Pee and Coach K. 

You see, while Lil Baby was a hustler on the streets and in and out of jail, some of his neighborhood buddies were creating amazing careers in the music business. Young Thug released his 'I Came From Nothing' mixtapes about the same time that Lil Baby dropped out of school to focus solely on his drug business. In 2015, when Baby was heading to a maximum security jail, his old pal Young Thug released his first platinum single, 'Best Friend'.

Coach K and Pee, two of Baby's friends, were also making a lot of noise in the music scene. They created their label 'Quality Control Music' and collaborated with Universal Music Distribution in 2012. Quality Control continued to work with Capital Music Group subsidiaries Motown and Caroline until that was dismantled in 2015. Quality Control has over the years signed artists including the Migos, OG Marc and Lil Yachty.

Lil Baby had been urged to rap by Coach K for years before he finally started doing it after being released from prison. This occurred in February 2017. By complete coincidence, that same month,he and his soon-to-be collaborator, Moneybagg Yo, released the music video for his song "all of a sudden".

Around this time, Lil baby also made the decision to stop his pricy lean habit. He understood that the substance would prevent him from being effective in the studio at this point, because he had already witnessed friends die from it. Little Baby's ambition to finish four mixtapes by the end of 2017 is what ultimately drove him to give up this addiction. 

Although it was a daring objective, he was able to make his recording sessions quite effective. He said that one mixtape was recorded in a brisk manner. His natural talent has also enabled him to skip other processes that, for many recording artists, would appear necessary, such as songwriting. He claimed that he simply entered the booth and proceeded from there. He would just freestyle, listen to the song, and then cut out certain sections. He claimed that he had never written a rap.

Lil Baby first became accustomed to hanging out in the studio when recording sessions with musicians like Migos and Young Thug took place. His old friend Jeffrey was one of the first musicians he worked with when it came time to start recording himself. 


His song Rider on Worldstar, on March 29th, was the earliest song he had on Soundcloud and his first appearance with World Star Hip-Hop. Since then, it has amassed nearly 500,000 views and 900,000 plays on Soundcloud.

His debut mixtape would be posted on Soundcloud at the ideal time after a number of his fresh tracks appeared on his account.

Around this time, he would also collaborate with artists like Lil Yachty and 100 Round, but Lil Baby's next world star feat, which had over 26 million plays on Soundcloud, would be his biggest success to date. It was his first song to chart, it earned over 33 million views on YouTube and peaked at number 71 on the Billboard Hot 100 and number 29 on the US R&B and Hip-Hop chart.

It would also appear on his upcoming mixtape, 'Harder Than Hard', which also includes tracks like "My Drip" and "Narcs," both of which have music videos with appearances by World Star and Arts.

Lil Baby, who was already smitten with World Star, would soon launch his own YouTube channel on November 5, 2017. The music video for his song "freestyle," which was his first offering there, has amassed nearly 56 million views to date.

He worked with Marlowe and Kollision on the song "Chance" and posted the video to his YouTube channel. Then came 'Stendo', featuring 4PF DT at the same time his world star features would continue to roll in.


In addition to the two mixtapes I already mentioned, Lil Baby also released a joint mixtape with Marlo called '2 The Hard Way' and 'Too Hard', this was towards the ending of 2017, rolling Into 2018. By the end of 2017, Lil Baby had achieved his goal of releasing four mixtapes. 

Lil Baby would keep up his grind by appearing on Quando Rondo's song 'I remember'. Along with Gucci Mane, he would collaborate on the tune "the load"and recently, the duo released a song "all dz chains". Lil Baby and Lil Durk released an album, "The voice of the Heroes" featuring Young Thug.

The young man is steady on his grind and making serious waves in the musi industry.