Lil Baby had to learn how to manage his finances the hard way, so he now tries to look out for his fellow peers and give them advice – even if they don’t always listen.
Appearing on Lil Yachty‘s A Safe Place podcast this week in one of his most candid interviews to date, Baby got real about his financial journey.
“Only thing I knew how to do was spending or buy some drugs,” he admitted. “We ain’t learn investing and accounting. I got my accountants from calling n-ggas. I DM’d Rick Ross, I DM’d 21 Savage. I just started looking at the people who I seen who had the right business. Bro I done got over $100 million from labels and deals. Not one time, nobody – and they still haven’t – told me how to pay my taxes. Nobody never even told me to pay my taxes. I just always knew from being around hearing people have tax problems.”
He continued: “[It got] to the point I was doing it so wrong. My first tax bills was so high because I was on some hustling shit, just saving all my money. The more money I was saving, I owed the IRS more money. I ain’t even know that you need to be spending this money. You need to be spending it the right way so you can save on your taxes. I ain’t know none of that. And this is a while ago. Like whenever I started rapping – two years from that because I ain’t pay my taxes the first two years. And I been rapping eight years. I pay my taxes quarterly now.
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“The rappers that I meet, I be trying to tell them and it kind of go in one ear and out the other, but I be trying to tell them, ‘This how you gotta do it. When you get a check, before you even get the check, try to spend the whole check on something that’s writeoff-able. That you could turn the money and parlay the money and then pay the taxes 10 years later now.'”
The money convo begins at the 50-minute mark below.
Elsewhere in the interview, Lil Baby announced that he’s planning to drop two new albums in 2025 that will showcase two different sides to his artistry.
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“At first, I was telling people I was going to drop a double album. Now, I’m dropping the WHAM album and Dominique album.”
The Atlanta rapper added that the second album, which is titled after his real name, will “hopefully” arrive in February, shortly after WHAM.
Baby was then asked by his “Sum More” collaborator how the two projects will differ: “I still put some of the songs I was gonna use for Dominique on WHAM ’cause I know my fanbase really want to hear them certain songs. WHAM is more me on some young n-gga shit — fast cars, girls, jewelry, money. You know, the turnt lifestyle.
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“And Dominique is more the serious me, more personal. That’s a part of the new journey I’m on. I hate the word vulnerable, but I’m gonna be more open to my fans and my audience.”
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WHAM (Who Hard As Me) is set to be released on January 3.
