DaeMoney and Baby Face Ray from the “Basket” music video.
Rap Blog is a weekly showcase of a standout rap song.
Collaborations between DaeMoney and Babyface Ray have the kind of consistent excellence you could set your watch to — as long as it’s a Rolex, or better. The Detroit rappers have been working on songs together since 2018, and the tradition continues on DaeMoney’s new project Rockstar Lifestyle 2. The tape sports a great new collaboration called “Earned It,” a song that proves that the duo’s resplendent chemistry is only maturing as time passes.
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The beat, courtesy of LulRose and Hitmula, is given just over 23 seconds to play before Ray opens the song. It’s a wise choice: the instrumental sounds like a portal to hell with heavy 808s over it, a vortex of backmasked horror movie synths that wail like lost souls. Such a tone is the perfect backdrop for Ray’s verse, where paranoia and defiance are littered with vivid details about the circumstances that have kept his circle small: “They like, ‘boy, you deserve it,” he raps, “They see me, they getting nervous.” DaeMoney matches this impressive balance of description and pure bars in a creaky deadpan. “All them scams, all them drugs, all them road trips I took / All that shit I been through, I swear that I could write a book,” he raps, and by the end, you’re eager for a copy.
