By Cody Englander, Contributor
[The Hip Hop Lab Records; 2023]
Rating: 4/10

Key tracks: “A2Z”, “Overthinking”

The story of BabyTron’s latest EP may be more entertaining than the EP itself. Much like the title suggests, after being arrested for drug possession, he got set out on bond, and recorded part of this 12 minute EP on the road directly after getting out. This EP is coming off of the success of Babytron’s success of his last album, Bin Reaper 3: New Testament, widely agreed to be one of his better works by fans and critics alike. Babyton addresses his arrest on the very first line of the project, “Stop saying free me, I got out the next day, man.” While this EP may not be high art, the context of this 5 song EP really helps to understand how we got the project that we did.

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BabyTron gained popularity by proving he could ‘rap over anything’, even rapping over complete silence in his 2022 XXL Freshman Cypher. While he sometimes raps over famous soundtracks, all the beats in his newest EP are underwhelming. Despite not being the appeal for most of Babytron’s fanbase, if he can truly rap over anything, he should be able to rap over more complex and challenging beats.

This isn’t to say his rapping skill is weak, however. Even on the more boring tracks, his flow is infectious, and at least one of these songs is catchy enough to stick with you. BabyTron is young, and his ability to keep up with pop culture emphasizes the comedic impact of his songs, and continues to reference obscure NBA players through this EP, a staple of BabyTron projects. 

While most of the songs are serviceable at worst, Long Nights borders on unlistenable. Even though it’s only one song, the runtime is three minutes, about twice as long as a song like this needs to be. The feature by Certified Trapper completely wrecks the song, and Babytron doesn’t have good enough background vocals to back him up. The song also ends with about forty seconds of silence, completely killing the quick pace of the EP. 

BabyTron doesn’t sound as smooth as he does on other projects, and funny lines with charm aren’t enough to save the project. Everything was rushed to capitalize on BabyTron getting out on bond, with nothing clever or of much substance. A Muggsy Bogues reference shouldn’t be the most memorable part of the album, but it is.

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