Young Thug Confirms Paying Lil Baby to Focus on Rap Before Baby Became Famous

Lil Baby has attributed his start in the rap game to Young Thug and Thugger recently confirmed that he played a role in Baby taking his rhymes seriously.

During an appearance on T.I.'s Expeditiously podcast, which premiered on Thursday (Nov. 19), Thug confirmed that he pushed Lil Baby to redirect his attention from the streets and to music.

While chatting with Young Thug, Tip asked the head of Young Stoner Life Records, "Lil Baby went on record in saying that you used to pay him just to focus on rap?." To that, Thug replied, "That nigga didn't know who he was."

Thugger continued: "I used to read that young nigga's captions and shit on his pictures and I'm calling that nigga like, 'Bruh, you know you can rap. You trippin.' He in jail like, 'Bruh, I'mma goddamn get out, I'mma goddam get me some money, get me a bag and do what I need to do.'"

Young Thug shared with T.I. during the conversation that he actually knew Baby prior to him doing two years in prison because they didn't live very far from one another in Atlanta. Thug then said he paid the now-Quality Control Records rapper to rhyme to show him that he can mold his life around the art.

"Just to groom him to you really could get paid from doing it. Like no cap, not no 'Ima pay you,' but no really actually doing it," he said.

Lil Baby first told XXL in our Fall 2019 issue that Thugger paid him to leave the hood to launch of his rap career.

"Young Thug, he gave me all the jewels," Baby said. "He literally paid me to leave the neighborhood. [He said], 'Bruh you can rap, you got it. You could be next. You gotta leave the ’hood… I'ma pay you to come to the studio.'"

Fast forward to 2020 and Lil Baby has over 20 RIAA gold certified songs including "The Bigger Picture," "Grace" and "All In." He also has more than 15 platinum songs such as "We Paid," "Emotionally Scarred" and "Woah." Baby's albums My Turn and Harder Than Ever have achieved platinum status while Street Gossip and Too Hard have gone gold.

Check out Young Thug speak on paying Lil Baby to rap on T.I.'s podcast at the 1:15:00-mark below.