Baby Keem
Location: O2 Academy
Baby Keem is known for his melancholy, humour and grit on the edge of trap and alternative melody. Coming to Glasgow’s O2 Academy on 14th September 2026.
Swapping flows over aggressive basslines and blue tones, Baby Keem embraces a location-free, Gen Z versatility that pushes the game forward.
A ‘00s baby growing up in Vegas, Hykeem Carter couldn’t be any less interested in a City of Sin devoid of a hip hop scene. But, maybe, it was that very boredom that fuelled the budding Grammy Award winner’s hunger to explore new horizons; working on his craft largely under the radar; purposely not reaching out or revealing his connection to his cousin – a one Kendrick Lamar – until he reached at least an adequate level of prowess.
Carter was surrounded by a music-loving family, getting into studios as a kid with his auntie, observing the art of burning CDs with LimeWire. But he soon felt the urge to find his own heroes: Kanye and his seminal 808s & Heartbreak, Eminem as he swiftly swapped characters and flows, the SoundCloud experiments of Lil Uzi Vert. As he got older and realised his gift for the game, he turned into a deeply dedicated student of hip hop with a mission “to outwork everybody”, as he later told The Rap Pack in a YouTube interview. Methodical, analytical, doing the research, honing his songcraft and flows, jumping from ready-made beats to making his own.
Hearts & Darts
From Oct to Hearts & Darts, his first EPs were self-released under his birth name between 2017-2018. As Baby Keem, he had also sharpened his skills enough to gain a production credit on the Black Panther soundtrack, curated by Kendrick Lamar. When he wrote ‘ORANGE SODA’, the lead single from his second, 2019 mixtape DIE FOR MY BITCH and his first entry in the lower echelons of Billboard, he was still in high school. Springboarding from love woes to trap aggression and back again, funny, mesmeric and edgy in one go, the rapper finally had people’s attention. Next destination: California.
The Melodic Blue
Baby Keem’s debut album, The Melodic Blue, came in 2021, a forceful, mostly self-produced statement of intent from the burgeoning artist. Trap bangers high on ‘durag activity’ with the likes of Travis Scott pierced through wistful, cinematic moods akin to indie song-making, all the way to number five on the Billboard 200. The now LA-based rapper also had the confidence to stand proudly beside Lamar. Enter ‘family ties’, a combative, horn-laden showstopper of a track from the album, and the cousins’ first official collab. Nominated for two Grammy Awards, the single won them Best Rap Performance the following year.
While shedding the layers to allow a new vulnerability shine through, Baby Keem bolstered his resume with high-profile collabs on either side of his first studio release: he got production credits on Beyoncé’s The Lion King: The Gift, Jay Rock’s Redemption and Schoolboy Q’s Crash Talk. He joined Kanye West’s ‘Praise God’, alongside Travis Scott, on the chart-topping Donda in 2021, and Lamar’s conscious hip-hop opus Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers in 2022, winner of Best Rap Album at the 65th Annual Grammy Awards.
Still in his early 20s, a break for this life-long student of hip-hop was long overdue. But, even away from the spotlight, Baby Keem is always writing his next chapter. Hear him roar.
