“Mood” by TheBabyDon

Hip-hop is undeniably a young player’s game, and with her new single “Mood,” rapper TheBabyDon is asserting herself as one of the premier acts coming into this new era for the genre. Equally melodic and hard-hitting, there’s nothing all that spectacular about the construction of this track; it’s the way this artist is stringing together lyrics that makes it a star over any of its cosmetic componentry, all of which feels like more of a template than it does a statement about her identity. She just starting out, but this is someone I want to keep on my radar in the future.

There’s a lot of traction to this beat, and all things considered, it gives the lyrics a little more oomph than they would have had to begin with. One of the most annoying things I encounter in the new wave of trap coming out of the underground is a lack of shape when it comes to the rhythm of the music, but this isn’t the case with “Mood” at all. TheBabyDon is comfortable with her place in the arrangement, and thus controlling the groove with her verses in a manner that a lot of her peers wouldn’t be able to replicate.

This bassline could be just a little bit bigger without sounding over the top or too intense for the track, but I’m not going to hold it against the artist at all. Contrarily, I’m impressed with how well the minimalistic accent it provides goes over with the rest of the arrangement, being that the percussion isn’t nearly as compensating as I would expect it to be. No one can accuse TheBabyDon of pretending to sport another player’s sound, and if they were about to, this single and its video should be enough to shut them down.

I would like to hear a slightly different tempo from this artist in the future, mostly because I think “Mood” presents us with too versatile a model to go unexploited. When it comes to experimentation, this might be the most on-point generation of rappers we’ve ever seen, and TheBabyDon shouldn’t hold back from engaging in as many alternative concepts in the studio as possible. There’s still more room for her to develop her lyrical edge, her strongest feature, and she’s already off to a really good start with the content she’s submitting in this performance.

TheBabyDon has got a long road ahead of her as a recording artist, but with what she’s already managed to accomplish I think it’s more than safe to say that she’s doing everything right at the moment – especially within the context of the modern American underground. Features with some more established players would give her some quick exposure, but overall I think that her sticking with the path she’s presently on is undeniably one of the better ideas any indie rapper could have in her position. In “Mood,” she’s presenting us with a profile that has the potential to really rise through the ranks a lot sooner than later.

Mindy McCall