Hi, everyone. Twothony Phonestano here, the internet's busiest music nerd. It's time for a review of this new Baby Keem album, Ca$ino.

West Coast rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, Baby Keem, dropping his long-awaited sophomore album here, a record that's been around five years in the making, which is a very unlikely output pace for an artist of his generation, especially given the massive breakout year that he had back in 2021 with his debut album. He does address the somewhat dodgy progression in a bar or two here, but Baby Keem himself did have a, I'll say, a peculiar come-up.

Sure, it is true that Baby Keem was active and honing his craft for a while before the release of The Melodic Blue, but you can't really deny the fact that an endorsement from his cousin, the one and only Kendrick Lamar, is kind of like a rap cheat code. Also dropping his two commercial projects thus far on Kenny's pgLang label.

But to Keem's credit, he is most definitely not squandering the opportunity because The Melodic Blue, while not a perfect record, was a project that showcased a lot of potential between Keem's growing production chops and his very unique vocal delivery. He's clearly an artist from the outset who emphasizes expressiveness and eccentricity over technical proficiency, which I think makes him a great collaborator for Kendrick when these two do happen to hop on the same track or when they're teaming up behind the scenes, too, because clearly these guys influence each other's flows and styles from time to time.

But yeah, when these guys are formally working on a track together, I think they tend to bring the best out in each other, resulting in tracks that are artful, catchy, simple, but also unpredictable, and even a little funny. "Top of the morning, top of the morning, top of the morning."

But Ca$ino here is about a lot more than laughs. It's clear that Baby Keem over the past five or so years has been building up a wealth of things to talk about. And he also uses the idea of a casino and wagers as a metaphor for the gamble that he's taking on music as a means to better himself, elevate himself, while also sighting his roots in the Las Vegas area, too. Like his cousin, Keem is also growing into a knack for processing personal trauma and the darker chapters of his life story, which he does over the course of a pretty punchy 37 minutes and 11 tracks.

Now, a lot like with The Melodic Blue, much of what Keem does on Ca$ino is rough around the edges. Whether it's the wrapping or the production, it's clear that Keem is not going for perfection here. But just because he's not one of the most proficient rappers walking the planet today, that doesn't mean this album is all vibes and vague emotions. There's actually quite a bit of substance to what Keem is saying on this project, showing that doing something for the meaning of it versus the feeling of it, it's not mutually exclusive.

The opening track, for example, is a great tone setter for this project, emotionally, and showcases Keem expressing some genuine feelings of regret over some very sad vocal chops, talking about past family members, and also feeling like he selfishly handled his newfound fame and money when he did actually hit it big, possibly suffering from a level of paranoia due to turbulent relationships that he had with people like his mother. Even as he is at a certain peak in life at the moment, you can't really hide how these decisions are haunting him today.

Then after this, we hit the title track, which is a jackpot of a song, a really raw, wild emotional trap banger with a lot of ups and downs. Lyrically and sonically, I feel like this song, what culminates here, is a lot of the best moments from The Melodic Blue, but it's all encapsulated into this one moment and turned up to 11. You have rumbling bass, crispy claps, really thick, dense, fuzzy synth licks.

Meanwhile, on top, we're getting Keem's very tense, squeaky, animated flows, where this man does not give a fuck if his voice cracks. I mean, he's just leaning into it regardless of how nerdy or dorky or weird it sounds. And yet still, he is able to convincingly pull off verse after verse that's painting all of these fast thrills he's experiencing in life. But then also touching upon moments where he's hitting rock bottom, talking about his estrangement from his father, and somehow it all just works together. Though I will say, the bar about she having a man and, "holding like Solána" did stick out like a stinker. I mean, crypto bars in 2026? Give me a break.

Also, I'd be remiss if I did not mention the crazy ass beat switch in the second half of this thing, with those little tiny, baby, weird, cartoony vocal chops. Again, perfect example of the way Keem's production choices perfectly just mirror and reflect his lyrical style, his vocal style, because it simultaneously sounds sick as hell, but then also Saturday morning cartoon. Then we get "Birds & the Bees", which is one of several cuts on this record where Keem really flexes his pop sensibilities with a few autotuned vocal leads and some really catchy refrains. The track is way more Romeo than I thought he would get on this album, and somehow he plays into this vibe well. Between this and the even more sugar-coated, "Dramatic Girl", I don't know if these songs reflect my favorite side of the album, but this is definitely a direction I could see Keem getting better at in the future, especially considering how many improvements we're seeing on other fronts on this album and compared to The Melodic Blue.

"Good Flirts" is another collaboration with Kendrick, as well as Momo Boyd, and they continue their history of silly big crossovers here with Kendrick literally dropping bars about there being a platinum plaque in that coochie. It's just what happens when the coochie has replay value, you know? Plus, his opening bars on his verse have a really nice Common nod thrown in there. But despite its sense of humor, this is genuinely a romantic and sweet track where Keem really does nail the vocal lines and overall sentiment and feeling you would want from a song like this without having to gussy it up so much that it sounds like a one-to-one carbon copy of a radio song from the 2000s.

This, of course, is another great contrast from the following "House Money". We're going emotional moment, banger, sweet track, banger, sweet track, banger. But yeah, this one also features a short Kendrick appearance. An interesting flow as well, one that feels very familiar. Couldn't quite place what I think his reference point here is. One of the closest things I could think of was Future's feature on "Flex Up" that also also has Playboi Carti and Lil Yachty on it. But then he also finishes this series of lines off with this one little vocal harmony that feels lifted from an Eminem song. It's a culmination of a few different things for sure, but catchy as hell.

I'm also loving the night and day change in terms of Keem's delivery and flow from the start to the verse he presents after Kendrick's initial appearance on the first chorus. He's really growing into the versatility he was merely making gestures toward on The Melodic Blue. One thing about this track, though, is that a lot of its content very clearly shows a weariness from Keem when it comes to intimate relationships with women. For whatever reason, he just doesn't seem to have the capacity to analyze that on a deeper level like he does other topics on this LP.

With "I am not a Lyricist", we do have genuinely an impressive lyrical showing from Keem in terms of being able to dig into some of these personal feelings around family in the way that he writes and expresses himself in his music. But he still is trying to make the case here that what he's doing here is not merely for wordplay or to impress you with his pen game or what he knows about the art form of rap lyricism. He wants fans clearly to take what he does as just him sharing his feelings and his life story, and he's just doing it the best way that he knows how.

I've also seen a lot of fans saying that his delivery and his presentation here is very reminiscent of André 3000. While I do think there is very clearly a connection there, I read his performance here as being a lot more influenced by Kendrick's Section.80. It's definitely not as up in his nose or as over the top as some of his other performances here. This is really serious Keem. It's not Baby Keem, it's like, Teenage Keem.

But right after this, we are thrown directly into another light-hearted cut, "$ex Appeal", featuring none other than Too $hort. Yes, Too $hort appearing on this album, interestingly enough. While I do think this track has genuinely catchy bones to it, the song is more goofy than it is sexy, with some of Keem's lines going on about too much sex appeal, sounding almost as if, I don't know, I just envisioned this is how Nardwuar would rap the track if he were made to.

Still, even with these strange bits here, Keem does get another couple of very serious tracks off afterward, like "Highway 95 pt.2". The dichotomy on this record continues to be crazy because this is really a heart-wrenching track where Keem really goes in and focuses on just how much the separation of ties between him and his other family members hurts him and leaves him to reflect on the ways in which he's going to grow away from, and grow apart from, people like his own nieces, and he's "not going to be shit to them", as he says on the track.

Again, it's a serious highlight for me, but as far as the final moments on this album go, they're a bit of a mixed bag because as much as Keem has improved since the release of The Melodic Blue, unfortunately, this album does not really stick the landing and serves as a reminder that an album is a collection of songs, not just simply a handful of highlights that we decide to praise based on whether or not we have a broader favoritism toward the artist.

Because the "Circus Circus Free$tyle", as many quirky and as over-the-top moments as the song contains, they don't really culminate into anything all that memorable. Then, "Dramatic Girl", that I mentioned earlier is handily the worst track on this entire record. It feels like what you would get if Keem were maybe collaborating with a very early iteration of MGMT. And while "No Blame" does pack a lot of punch emotionally and personally in terms of Keem addressing his very fraught relationship with his mother, the track feels like a bridge to nowhere in terms of how it's structured or what it's exactly trying to say. Not only that, but it's easily one of the most derivative moments on the entire album. It feels like this is something Kanye would have done in the late 2000s, maybe.

So, yeah, once again, while Keem does show a lot of artistry and personality and is certainly digging deeper emotionally and lyrically on this record than he did on The Melodic Blue, there's definitely some finer details that were very much glossed over in the process of making this album. And Keem's amateurish flair doesn't always serve the music he's trying to create, too.

Finally, while this doesn't personally bother me, the similarities that you can hear on this record between Keem and Kendrick Lamar, at least in terms of what Kendrick has been doing in his latest material, I appreciate the way they influence each other, inspire each other, that artistic symbiosis. But after having heard this project, it does feel like Kendrick is raiding Keem's stash a little bit on this one.

Now, as a result, he's left here having to hit us with these inflections and these vocal ideas that have already reached a mainstream saturation. The novelty that some of these ideas could have had a few years ago is now gone. So yeah, again, while I do see this record as Keem stepping up beyond what he did on his last album, its final moments leave a bad taste in my mouth.

And this does not feel like the quality of the album that we have been waiting for for all this time. I worry that if it takes another five years for Keem to put out another record with only very minimal improvements, then we could end up in a place where the full potential of his success has passed him by, which is why I'm feeling a light to decent 7 on this album.

Anthony Fantano, Baby Keem, Forever.