Lil Baby, who earlier this year became the first artist of 2020 to go double platinum thanks to his My Turn album, reflected on the impact of his hit "The Bigger Picture" in a new interview out on Monday.
The protest track, which proved a massive success on the Billboard Hot 100 and was accompanied by a video showing Lil Baby joining a Black Lives Matter protest in Atlanta, arrived weeks after Minneapolis police killed George Floyd. In a new interview with GQ, the song is mentioned by writer Jewel Wicker amid note of Baby's ultimately removed Instagram post about working with Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms on issues of police reform.
"The more I'm seeing what's up with all that shit, the more I'm like, 'Let me back up off politics,'" Baby said in the interview. "I don't want to be no Malcolm X or Martin Luther [King].… I stuck my nose in it. I'm good on that."
Also mentioned in the new interview is Paul Howard, the District Attorney who famously prosecuted Baby and ultimately sent him to prison back in 2014. In a Facebook post in July, Howard thanked Baby for his "endorsement and support" amid his efforts to again be elected Fulton County DA.
According to Baby, however, there was no endorsement. Instead, the two had a meeting after being "introduced by a mutual acquaintance." That meeting focused on criminal justice reform, with Baby explaining to GQ the importance of face-to-face meetings on such issues.
"If I can sit at a table and really talk to you like I'm human, versus the politics and you in that courtroom, you really might come to reality versus you sending n****s godd*mn down the road for 500 years," Baby said, adding—with regards to Howard's endorsement claim—that he "sent me to prison."
Peep the full GQ interview, which also sees Baby discussing the death of Lil Marlo and the death of a friend from COVID-19, right here.
Back in July, Lil Baby discussed his own experiences with police brutality—as well as the longstanding prevalence of systemic racism in America—in a chat with Rolling Stone's Charles Holmes, notably recounting abuse he faced by white cops in prison.
"There have been times I had a physical altercation with an officer, and he then grabbed me and took me to a room where there's no camera," he said at the time. "We have a physical altercation and left me in a room for about an hour."
This month, Lil Baby linked up with Rod Wave for the official "Rags2Riches 2" video. Revisit that below.
