Baegod’s name is more than just an amusing play on Lil B’s nickname, ‘The BasedGod’. It gives us a pretty clear idea of her music existing somewhere close to the sweeter end of hip-hop, correctly suggesting hushed R&B pillow-talk over Atlanta beats. Of course, we might also glean this from the fact that each of Petit Début EP’s three tracks has a French name (it is the language of seduction after all): ‘Dijon’, ‘Bouge Toi’, and ‘Bien’.
‘Dijon’, the first track, starts the EP off as Baegod herself and Sbvce share their carefully auto-tuned bars over soft-focus electric piano. The male-female dynamic sees each of the performers voices perfectly complementing the others in a twist on the classic R&B duet. Sbvce starts the rap-singing off sounding like Drake at his most Jamaican. After 8 bars, Baegod jumps in, cooing like Erykah Badu for her own 8 bars. This trade-off continues like a musical conversation between lovers ‘til the song’s end.
‘Bouge Toi’ leans further away from the hip-hop influence of ‘Dijon’ and closer to the aforementioned Badu influence. After Sbvce’s brief rapped intro, the song belongs to Baegod’s vocal as it floats lightly over the track. The song has an unusual effect of echolalia where almost anything uttered either of the performers is followed by a pitched-up version of the same sound. This adds to the song’s effect being somewhere between drowsiness and drugginess, like that brief moment when you first wake up before you fully shake your dream-state.
‘Bien’ is probably the most adept blurring of the barriers between R&B and hip-hop on the EP. It’s also home to some of the EP’s most effective hooks. Baegod’s voice on the main hook is here equalised as if coming to us from down the line of our own phone, an effect that draws us further into the song’s sense of intimacy. After this, Baegod breaks into a rap without a trace of singing. The song’s bridge continues in the EP’s interesting use of vocal production, featuring a duet between Baegod and a digitally harmonised version of her own voice.
‘Petit Début’ is a promising work that finds itself an individual spot in the blurred genre lines of R&B and hip-hop. It’ll certainly whet your appetite for the “Ride Or Die Music” full-length, currently in the works.
Rating: ★★★★
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author: Ed Ledsham