Baby Kia, the New Face of Crashout Music, Gets His Life Together
Show & Prove: Baby Kia
Words: Georgette Cline
Editor’s Note: This story appears in the Winter 2024 issue of XXL Magazine, on newsstands now and available for sale on the XXL website.
Posted up in front of a church with a crew of shiesty-wearing guys around him, 18-year-old rapper Baby Kia smokes a cigarette while rapping in a shrill tone, “Yeah, walkin’ down Bleveland with that stick/Extra bullets in my jumpsuit, I can’t wait to let it hit.” His head explodes, and blood pours out on the word “hit” for extra emphasis courtesy of special video effects. The scene, captured in the music video for the Atlanta native’s Eman32x-produced song “OD Crashin,” went viral on X in March of 2024, after it dropped a month prior.
His aggressive vocals, cloaked in chaos and the sounds of screamo rap, encapsulate a new wave of Atlanta drill and what’s been described as “crashout” music: raging energy with lyrics that often depict violent actions. Comments on Kia’s viral clip range from “Didn’t know that punk rock rap was a thing” to “Sh*t need some holy water sprinkled on it,” proving the audience is captivated for myriad reasons.
While Kia was aware he was taking over the internet, he was also coming to terms with what it meant to have millions of eyes in his direction. The music video has over 23 million views, while the X video has 4 million. “I was still trying to just come to the reality that this is me now,” he says of his viral fame during a Zoom call in late October. “I don’t really give a f**k, but I really care, though. I’m grateful.”
Baby Kia, born K’Hari Hoard, never dreamed of being in the spotlight. He grew up in Atlanta’s Fulton County at Capitol Homes and moved to the historic Cleveland Avenue area—where rappers like Young Thug and Lil Keed once called home—when he was 8. Basketball kept him occupied, but so did rap as an avid listener.
YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s bars served as Kia’s soundtrack from elementary to middle school. His parents also put him on to DMX, Juvenile, Mystikal and Busta Rhymes. Kia would listen to much of it in his dad’s car. Unfortunately, school didn’t hold the best memories for Baby Kia, who skipped class or got kicked out. “I was a little troubled, so it was kind of difficult for me to just stay in the seat,” Kia expresses. That likely had to do with finding his mother deceased in a bathroom at the age of 14. “I was just getting started,” he says of his interest in rapping after she passed.
At 16, he began experimenting with his own rhymes after his little brother used Kia’s phone to make music using the BandLab platform. Kia tinkered with the program and then made a song at a neighborhood friend’s home studio. However, the recording process was short-lived. Kia saw dollar signs elsewhere and didn’t care about rapping anymore.
“I had other sh*t going on,” he explains. “I was trying to get some money.” He attempted to get a job at McDonald’s, Papa John’s and Kroger, but nothing worked out. Simultaneously, Kia was getting into more trouble, though he’s tight-lipped about it. “I was doing the unspeakable,” he shares. “Let’s just say that.”
By 2022, Kia returned to the studio thanks to his friend Will, who encouraged the aspiring star to get in the booth again. He learned to use ProTools and began to build a catalog. The rap neophyte dropped his debut EP, Kia World, independently on UnitedMasters in April of 2023 after his friend uploaded the project to UM’s music distribution site.
Death, murder and mayhem saturate Kia’s lyrics. Hooks don’t exist, and he rarely rides the beat. Reactions to the project from kids in school put the battery in his back. “They were calling me in school, playing my sh*t, [saying], ‘They hard, they hard,’” he recalls. So, Kia kept going, but his fledgling career was almost derailed after being arrested in the summer of 2023. According to Kia, he got locked up in a juvenile facility when he was 16, for about three months for an assault with a deadly weapon arrest that carried 14 charges. The situation motivated him to get back on track. “I got to put certain things down to pick better things up,” he maintains. “But you know, you live and learn as you get older.”
His Glaah Glaah Boom EP arrived that fall, and the labels called since he was still unsigned. With his manager, Jamil Mitchell, by his side, Kia took a deal with Artist Partner Group (APG) in November of 2023. APG A&R Shareef “Reef” Stradford found Kia on Instagram in September of 2023, after going down a rabbit hole of young Atlanta artists. “You could hear a hundred artists, and his voice is going to stick out the most,” Reef affirms. “I feel like he has the most creative bars. It honestly feels like he creates new sentences because I’ve never heard anybody say some of the stuff that he says.”
When Reef brought Kia to Eli Piccarreta, SVP of A&R at APG, Eli was drawn to how entertaining and fearless the rhymer was. “Just from a music perspective, if you can put yourself in that place where you can say and do the things that he’s doing, it really unlocks another level of creativity,” says Eli, who signed YoungBoy Never Broke Again, NoCap and Rico Nasty to the label. “It walks the line of sometimes reality and fantasy, making a necklace out of somebody’s teeth or something.”
Baby Kia confirms that not all of his rhymes are from a lived experience. “I don’t know if I did it all,” he conveys while adding, “My point of view.” Just listen to “Let’s Play a Game,” released in December of 2023, to hear the way he describes eliminating his opps through a game that involves eating a razor-filled candy bar. That track and “OD Crashin” anchored his first mixtape, Hell Can’t Save You, which arrived in March of 2024. The cover art, an homage to DMX’s 1998 album, Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood, shows Kia covered in blood while holding screwdrivers to his head. I Pray You Die, his second tape, dropped seven months later.
After unloading three projects in 2024, this year is full of big goals for Baby Kia. In 2025, he wants to top what he hasn’t already accomplished. “I ain’t in the race with nobody but myself,” he maintains. The rap newcomer plans on releasing three projects in addition to his debut album. He also wants to get his GED after dropping out in 11th grade. An arrest this past October for disruption or interference with the operation of public schools at a Georgia high school prompted him to do better. In the ongoing case, he must take a Youth Against Violence course as a condition of his bond.
“I’m trying to get my life together,” Kia confesses. “Anything I feel like I’ve been doing to get me in trouble, I’ve been trying to get away from it, one by one.”
Smart choice.
Listen to Baby Kia’s I Pray You Die Mixtape
Baby Kia photo
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The Winter 2024 issue of XXL magazine featuring Baby Kia’s Show & Prove interview is available for purchase now and is on newsstands. The issue also includes GloRilla and Sexyy Red on the cover, conversations with Ab-Soul, Dej Loaf, Quando Rondo, Ferg, Nav, Kash Doll, Sauce Walka, Anycia, BLP Kosher, OsamaSon, Sugarhill Ddot, dancehall artist Skillibeng and producer Ace Charisma. There’s also a look at the new season of the Netflix reality competition show Rhythm + Flow through the eyes of its judges Latto, DJ Khaled and Ludacris, a discussion with high-powered hip-hop attorney Drew Findling, plus 18 hip-hop heavyweights discuss the state of lyricism.