Lil Baby – My Turn

My Turn is the second studio album by American rapper Lil Baby. It was released on February 28, 2020, by Capitol Records, Motown, Wolfpack Music Group, and Quality Control Music. The album features guest appearances from Gunna, 42 Dugg, Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Wayne, Moneybagg Yo, Young Thug, and Rylo Rodriguez. The album was supported by two singles, “Woah” and “Sum 2 Prove”.

My Turn received generally positive reviews and debuted atop the US Billboard 200, becoming Lil Baby’s first US number-one album.

Background
In October 2019, Lil Baby revealed plans to release his next studio album before the end of 2019, but was delayed until the following year.
The album’s artwork and release date were revealed in January 2020. Lil Baby took to Instagram Live and explained the album’s title:
“I called it My Turn ’cause I feel like everybody else had a lil’ turn. It’s my turn now. Everybody dropped their mixtapes, their albums – go number 1, number 2, number 3″

Singles
The album’s lead single, “Woah”, was released for digital download on November 8, 2019. The song was produced by Quay Global. The music video was released on December 6, 2019.

The album’s second single, “Sum 2 Prove”, was released on January 10, 2020. The song was produced by Twysted Genius. The music video was released on February 18, 2020.

Promotional single
The album’s lead promotional single, “Catch the Sun”, also from the Queen & Slim soundtrack, was released on November 15, 2019. The song was produced by Hit-Boy. The music video was released on January 29, 2020.

Other songs
Music video for the song, “Heatin Up” featuring frequent collaborator Gunna, was released on February 28, 2020, while the music video for “Forever” featuring Lil Wayne, was released on March 3, 2020. Both videos was directed by Jon J.

Artwork
The artwork features a pastoral painting that illustrates Lil Baby atop a large jutting rock, with water, baby goats and greenery surrounding him. He’s shown lighting up, the smoke adding to the haziness of the artwork.

My Turn was met with generally positive reviews. At Metacritic, the album received an average score of 66, based on five reviews. Album of the Year assessed the critical consensus as a 63 out of 100.

Critical reception
AllMusic’s critic Fred Thomas gave the album a positive review, praising Baby’s vocal delivery as well as his flow on the album. Thomas further says that “Lil Baby manages to keep every moment fresh, finding a unique and unlikely midway between artistic inspiration and commercially viable entertainment”. Writing for NME, Kyann-Sian Williams gave the album a mixed to positive review, praising many of the features on the album as well as Baby’s delivery, although stating that the album “starts of a little slow and dreary”. Furthermore, Williams said that the album “is an enjoyable collection of tracks for his loyal fans. He [Lil Baby] would do well, though, to stay away from the whiny sounds and rap with a little bit more clarity”. Pitchfork’s critic Sheldon Pearce had mixed opinions regarding the album, saying that “the music is all work and no inspiration”. He implied that Baby’s songwriting and lyricism has improved, but also stating that he “doesn’t really have any charisma, or flavor, or personality”. A. Harmony of Exclaim! said, “The stuffed effort could be Lil Baby’s attempt to showcase his growth. But one mark of artistic maturity is exercising restraint – less is often more.” Writing for Rolling Stone, Danny Schwartz gave the album an overall mixed review, commending Baby’s lyrical skills, saying “Baby’s great strength is that he conveys emotion effortlessly; he doesn’t need to formally unpack old traumas to bear them out”. However, Schwartz mentioned that the “excessive length” of My Turn results in “a lot of filler” songs. Nonetheless, he described these songs as “premium grade”.

Commercial performance
My Turn debuted at number one on the US Billboard 200 with 197,000 album-equivalent units (including just under 10,000 pure album sales) in its first week. It is Lil Baby’s first US number-one album. In its second week, the album dropped to number four on the chart, earning 104,000 album-equivalent units. In its third week, the album climbed to number two on the chart, earning 77,000 album-equivalent units that week. In its fourth week, the album fell to number three on the chart, earning 60,000 more album-equivalent units, bringing its four-week total to 438,000 units. On March 26, 2020, the album was certified gold by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for combined sales and album-equivalent units of over 500,000 units in the United States.