Lil Baby’s Tears for Fears-Sampling World Cup Anthem Takes His Motivational Rap Several Steps Too Far – Pitchfork

Pitchfork writer Alphonse Pierre’s rap column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, Instagram freestyles, memes, weird tweets, fashion trends—and anything else that catches his attention.

Lil Baby’s supposedly inspirational single “The World Is Yours to Take” is one of the weirdest rap songs of the year

Lil Baby is a good rapper. He’s got a lot of songs I like a lot. “Freestyle”? Transcendent! “We Paid”? Spiritual! The deluxe edition of My Turn? It might be the greatest rap album that also happens to be pure stream-bait. But as of late, Lil Baby joints have really leaned into the urge to motivate at all costs. Yeah, I know his music has long been fuel for SEC wide receivers and Power Five conference college basketball recruits, but his uplifting powers have reached a whole new level.

This kicked into high gear around the time of “The Bigger Picture,” his 2020 protest song that elevated him into an Important Cultural Voice in the eyes of those who had previously (mistakenly) written off his music as disposable. He got invited to perform at the Grammys on the back of that song, and the moment became a focal point of an underwhelming Amazon doc about his life. But award shows and documentaries don’t get that Lil Baby is not a great rapper because he healed the nation—it’s because he can write something as melodramatic as “Emotionally Scarred” and make it fun to rap along with, and because he can spit a verse about wrecking Lambo trucks and hanging out at James Harden’s crib, like he does on “All In,” and make it sound like it’s the most important shit in the world.

Well, the conference table where they commissioned “The World Is Yours to Take,” Lil Baby’s “inspirational” new “Budweiser anthem of the FIFA World Cup of 2022” didn’t get the memo either. The song—which is either a World Cup theme, a beer ad, or both—offers a freakishly bizarre tonal mash-up. Over a flip of Tears for Fears’ “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”—another wild-ass choice, so obvious that it’s insane—Lil Baby’s lyrics aren’t far off from what he usually writes, with nods to his hustler’s mentality and life lessons he learned the hard way. It’s just that now they’re now meant to be anthemic. Yes, Lil Baby has made surefire anthems before, but they never felt as if they were made exclusively for that purpose.