Big Baby Gandhi retired from rap. It might seem as though Gandhi is pulling a typical rap move, retire/return/write “can't leave rap alone the game needs me”, with the release of an EP produced by Yuri Beats, but he is still retired. The loud-mouth Queens rhymer is leaving the jersey in the rafters and putting his chips towards pharmacy school. The America Eats Its Babies EP is a clearing of the vaults. In a brief interview with XXL, Yuri beats shared the motivation behind the EP, which seems to have foreshadowed the retirement.
All the individual pictures on this album kinda represent questions we would riff on in our sessions. Mainly, how do we balance the conventions of rap with need to be honest? How do we try to be artists and survive in America? How do we both, as financially struggling young artists, participate in a medium that often appears to emphasize financial success over artistic integrity? We didn’t come up with any great answers.
The brevity of America Eats Its Babies won't offer much condelensce for those who miss the BBG, the five-song EP barely graces 10-minutes in length. But with five individual stories to unwrap, America Eats Its Babies should not be cast off as a loose collection. The EP directs a critical eye to the privileged few on “Annie Hall” and “Madonna's Kids” and sympathy to the proletariat creators on “Mr. 718 and “Grant Green”. And for those who loved Gandhi for his eccentricity, look to “Gianna Michaels”, named after the grade-A adult performer, for the ad-lib “it's sorta like a diss track to the pussy, feel me” over Yuri's sample that boasts “I'm not scared”.
It's also rumored that Big Baby Gandhi plans to release the debut full length he made before retiring this year.
