Baby Keem

Hykeem Jamaal Carter Jr. (born October 22, 2000), known professionally as Baby Keem, is an American rapper and record producer.

Hykeem Jamaal Carter Jr. was born on October 22, 2000, in Carson, California.

His mother struggled with substance abuse and alcoholism, while his father, Hykeem Carter Sr., was not an active parental figure.

Carter was raised in Las Vegas, Nevada by his grandmother until the age of eight, and considers her to be his second mother.

Much of his childhood was spent in music studios as he watched his aunts and uncles burn CDs using LimeWire.

He also faced eviction and was reliant on food stamps.

Later into his teen life, Baby Keem spent his time playing video games and "cooking up" in games such as Geometry Dash, Fortnite and PUBG.

Carter was brought up around a musically talented family, where all of his uncles and cousins were rappers.

His older cousins include rapper Kendrick Lamar and basketball player Nick Young; he may also share some relatives with rapper Tanna Leone.

He always expressed an interest in rapping, but was not confident with his naturally high-pitched voice and chose to wait until it was developed.

When he was thirteen, Carter began producing music using Apple software on his computer.

At fifteen, he borrowed $300 from his grandmother and purchased a small recording setup for his bedroom on Craigslist.

He soon moved to Los Angeles to pursue a musical career.

Carter disliked his "boring", "dry", and "small" hometown where "everybody knows everybody", and cited its obsolete music scene as a key factor in his decision to move.

He used to post and livestream Minecraft and FIFA gameplay on YouTube and Twitch.

Carter made his first song, "Come Thru", during his freshman year of high school; it was removed from the Internet and he hopes "nobody will ever find it."

Raised in Las Vegas, he gained recognition in the late 2010s with his contributions to Black Panther: The Album, Redemption, Crash Talk, and The Lion King: The Gift.

His first extended play (EP), Oct, was independently released under his birth name on November 7, 2017, but was removed from major streaming media services shortly after its release.

According to RapTV, the 9-track EP showed traces of Carter's future musical style by "featuring a mix of bouncy, hard beats and slower, emotional cuts."

He released his second EP, Midnight, on January 16, 2018.

Although it showcased the same production as Oct, RapTV noticed that Carter's delivery was "more confident and loud."

In an interview with Complex, he admitted that Midnight did not have any real artistic direction, and described the project as "just nine songs in my stash that I liked and put out."

After emailing a sample of his production to independent record label Top Dawg Entertainment, Carter contributed to the soundtrack album for the superhero film Black Panther (2018) as a producer.

During the summer, he released two EPs, No Name and Hearts and Darts, and produced two songs on Jay Rock's third studio album Redemption.

He considers Hearts and Darts, which was his first project under his stage name Baby Keem, to have personality that Midnight lacked.

In October 2018, he released his debut mixtape, The Sound of Bad Habit, through the Orchard and Sony Music.

The mixtape was executive produced by Cardo.

He rose to prominence in 2019 through his sleeper hit single "Orange Soda".

Keem produced two songs on Schoolboy Q's fifth album, Crash Talk (2019).

On July 19, 2019, he produced a song for singer Beyoncé's soundtrack album The Lion King: The Gift and released his second mixtape, Die for My Bitch.

The alternative hip hop mixtape carried strong pop-punk and alternative rock elements, and received significant media attention.

Its lead single, "Orange Soda", became a sleeper hit and helped Keem make his first appearances on the Billboard 200, Billboard Hot 100 and Emerging Artists charts.

He supported the mixtape with his first concert tour, the Die for My Bitch Tour, which visited select venues across the U.S. from November 12 to November 20, 2019.

After signing with PGLang and Columbia Records in 2020, Keem released his debut studio album The Melodic Blue (2021), which was met with critical and commercial success.

It was certified platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and its final single, "Family Ties", won the Grammy Award for Best Rap Performance.

His collaborations with Kanye West on Donda (2021) and his cousin Kendrick Lamar on Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers (2022) earned him two nominations for the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Keem's partnership with creative services company PGLang, founded by Kendrick Lamar and filmmaker Dave Free, was announced through his appearance in the company's visual mission statement on March 5, 2020.

He was included on XXL's annual Freshman Class list in August.

Upon signing a recording contract with Columbia Records, Keem released the single album "Hooligan / Sons & Critics" on September 18, 2020; the latter song confirmed his familial relation to Lamar after rumors began to emerge.

Keem was featured on Kanye West's song "Praise God" alongside Travis Scott for the former's tenth album, Donda (2021).