A PERFECT PAINTING: WHY BABY KEEM PAINTED THE PERFECT PIECE WITH HIS WORDS
- chrisdikane
- May 3, 2025
- 3 min read
Sing about me am dying of thirst, Kendrick Lamar, Devil in a new dress, Rick Ross verse and Dangerous, School Boy Q. These are some of the songs wherein I found the artists to have painted pieces using their words. Every word connected to the next, every rhyme, rhymed to the next and every bar was a scene. These songs have taken listeners to an art gallery and have enabled our minds eye look at a canvas being filled with colour and imagery by the words of these poets. An art form truly worth every praise and respect.
We here today not to discuss the rap story art form, we here to discuss why Baby Keem's verse on the song "Savior (Interlude) was the greatest painting of all time. Not just among the other rap song painters but among every painting ever painted.
It Started Like This:
"You ever seen your momma strung out while you studied division, your Uncle ever stole from you, day after Christmass".
The detail in those two lines is something I have never encountered before. Studying division while your mother is strung out is so graphic and too specific that your mind cannot help but create that picture. I have lived for 28 years and no one has ever told me that they once seen their mother strung out on drugs/alcohol while they studied division. Two events that have been known to be difficult, A strung out parent & Division. I have never been taken to a world as well as Baby keem did with these two lines. The stillshots these two lines created in my mind is something I have never experienced and don't think I will ever. Feelings, the feeling those two lines elicited in me is the type of feeling that no painting could ever make me feel. Reason number one why this is the greatest painting of all time. The bar is simple but extremely detailed in the painting it paints.
Then it Went:
"My uncle would tell me the shit in the movies could only be magic. This year I did forty three shows and took it all home to buy him a casket"
Its too specific to not be real. These arent just words, his uncle did tell him "the shit in the movies could only be magic", he truly did go on tour and "did forty three shows" and he came back and had to buy a casket because his uncle died while he was away. Its just two line, two lines filled with many experiences, many events, so much pain. You hear it and you immediately see. It does not take time to understand his painting. With these two lines, Baby keem presented the duality of living in the simplest but also relatable manner ever. He did forty three shows(joy, success) and came back and had to bury his uncle who he had a very particular relationship with who only he and his uncle can understand and appreciate( pain, loss). With these two line, he painted the greatest representation of the Ying Yang image ever. These two lines are my Ying Yang image.
Finally it Ended with:
"I got this shit brackin' in four days, Four eyes, four eyes, two eyes. Switch sides, nigga be fresh out Suicide doors, I suicide, suicide. Lambo body, who gon' stop me"
The beauty of these two lines is in its meaninglessness. I have absolutely no fucking idea what any of anything in this line means, but i do know without a shred of a doubt that its the coolest shit i have ever seen in my line. The sentence just looks cool. Dont read the words, just look at the sentence and tell me that it isnt the greatest sequencing of words you have ever seen your life. This line solidifies why this song is the greatest painting ever.
This is not a paid promotion. Just a blog post on my appreciation of the song. If you have not heard it, please do your mind a favour and go listen.
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