Lil Baby is playing the game — not soccer but the other game. The Atlanta rap star has never been allergic to corporate sponsorships; last year, for instance, he had the best song on the soundtrack to the cinematic atrocity Space Jam: A New Legacy. Next month, Baby will release his new album It’s Only Me, and he just came out with the single “Detox” a few weeks ago. But Baby’s new song has nothing to do with his album rollout. Instead, he’s got one of the official anthems for this year’s World Cup in Qatar — a whole different kind of atrocity.
Lil Baby’s new song is called “The World Is Yours To Take,” and it’s a Budweiser-sampled single for the official World Cup soundtrack. The new song has six credited producers, and it’s built on a sample of Tears For Fears’ “Everybody Wants To Rule The World.” The Tears For Fears song was a #1 hit in 1985, and it’s been having a bit of a TikTok renaissance lately. (My daughter loves it.)
On “The World Is Yours To Take,” Lil Baby uses that Tears For Fears sample to highlight his motivatinal-speaker lyrics: “I’m by far one of the hardest workers/ Real firm believer in practice make perfect/ You can gather all the water, stay thirsty/ Took a lot to get us here, we broke curses.” That seems like a misreading of the Tears For Fears song, and the song definitely doesn’t work. Still, people are definitely getting paid on this one. Listen below.
Lil Baby’s new album It’s Only Me is out 10/14 on Capitol/Motown/Wolfpack/Quality Control. Check out our recent We’ve Got A File On You interview with Tears For Fears’ Curt Smith here.
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