Two years after his fourth studio album, Zero Panic, Vol 2, Dapper frontman and street hop act, Balloranking has returned with a 7-track album, Baby Thug, a follow-up to the 1942 EP released earlier in 19 June—which like ex-Dapper signee Seyi Vibez’s 2025 CHILDREN OF AFRICA EP and Fuji Moto album has proven to be a prelude and fodder of sorts for the main LP.
Baby Thug is the first major release from the label since singers Bhadboi OML and T.I Blaze departed on 27 May and 11 June 2026, respectively, having supposedly completed the terms of their contracts; whereas Balloranking just signed a 4-year extension. As such, it’s a project with a fair weight of expectation, possibly hinting at Dapper’s next sonic direction, but more likely than not just an expression of Balloranking’s vision. The 25-year-old Surulere-born singer has always been the more reserved of the bunch, even in his music, with a subsided confessional style compared to others in the misnomer ‘Afro-Adura’ sub-genre.
As an aside, there’s something to be said about the Baby Thug album cover: a photograph of who this writer assumes to be Balloranking as a toddler in a peach shirt, edited to include a Tupac Shakur-styled grey and white bandana, diamond earrings, grills, Jesus piece neck chain, silver bracelets, and rings. A cover that’s in the lineage of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit, Simi’s Omo Charlie Champagne Vol. 1, and The Notorious B.I.G’s Life After Death. All three covers do in fact reference the artists’ childhood, in detail or in passing, so it would be interesting to hear if this comes to bear thematically, especially given the project’s title.
In typical one-listen fashion, there were no skips, rewinds, fast-forwards, or pauses. Certain reactions have been edited for appropriate language. All opinions expressed are those of the writer as parsed in real time.
For a split second at the beginning of the album intro, Jungle, this writer almost assumed that the song would be in step with the genre of the same name—wishful thinking if you ever heard one. Instead, we have bits of a patois monologue sample before dancehall beats and piano chords accompany Balloranking’s lines about believing in the face of life’s pressures. “Die or die trying for this jungle” Midway through, the track becomes more up-tempo, with synth bursts just barely audible. Balloranking matches this with a tighter flow, slick wordplay like “Wetin be the 411, make I know 1-2” in tow. Sean Paul-styled club chants of “Hey” at the end settle you into the party groove.
Unsurprisingly, we immediately arrive in mid-tempo Afropop territory. Melanin sees the singer play on dark skin, that most explored of Nigerian pop motifs—if only music videos reflected this colour positivity, but that’s by the way. Mumbled vocals on the pre-chorus down the beauty of Balloranking’s verse about what makes his love interest unique. But all the same, this transitions smoothly into a short, soothing Oxlade verse with sparse falsettos. Kalimba on the outro makes for fun listening, topped by hearing Deobeatz’s producer tag.
“Brother Lekan, ọrọbọ, lẹpa, ẹ gbé kàn” is every bit as cheeky an opening line to a song as it is objectifying. It also tells you what Angelina is about. Here, Balloranking deploys even funnier one-liners over ragga instrumentation, including something about an Obiageli who’s hotter than 100°C. The arrangement here is rather lazy as it neither capitalises on his neo-fuji delivery nor the song’s attempted humour. Not even on the second verse where he sings about the anxiety of waiting for a text from his chief love interest, “Angelina from Argentina” causing “mood swings like Jangilova.”
Balloranking’s humorous streak continues on Pami. Only this time, his delivery is even less dynamic, playing it too safe. Where Angela was about the various ways his lovers make him feel, Amapiano Pami asks that they don’t, well, kill him. Yet again, he sings in appreciation of plus-sized bodies, which is, at this point, one of Afropop’s better cliché subjects (think Sound Sultan’s Orobo and Davido’s 10 Kilo). The best part of this song, a three-syllable scheme at the beginning of the 2nd verse, comes just before the outro, where Balloranking finally lifts his voice an octave higher, backed by synths.
You’d expect a song called 1942 to live up to the hype of its similarly-titled predecessors—by Odeal and Ayra Starr—but it doesn’t. Over a 3-step production, Balloranking serves up a smattering of street knowledge (“E plenty joor/One man no fit do convoy”) and lyrics about having a good time (“Mi ò lè já bí Tyson/Mo ń jaiye selense”). A downer of a party track. However, it won’t be far-fetched that this track makes it to playlists all the same.
The spirit of EDM continues its campaign on the tail end of Baby Thug with Weekend, a tepid Dance track that’s barely worth the time. Balloranking sounds uninspired on the chorus. Jumping from talking about God as his protection to glorifying the virtues of ass. And when he sings “Ṣe mo f’orí jọ Geh-Geh,” this writer is torn between happiness at well-deserved criticism of the streamer’s dumb stances, and sadness that he [Geh-Geh] even has so much significance to begin with. The Motown vocalization of “Make we dance” at the end is a nice redeeming touch. But that’s about it for Weekend.
We close out the tape on a 3-step high with Street-hop stoicism (“Na you versus you, nobody go come to your rescue”). Prayers and a desire to be Happy. He qualifies this happiness as being similar to a Molly high, further admitting that if sadness could be bought in packets, he’d buy ten. Happy is a reflective high on the album. It offers some of the album’s better production and arrangement choices as well—chipmunk background ad-libs on the instrumental break and moderate autotune use that highlights the singer’s vocal texture. And while not the strongest interpretation of the concept of the artists’ continuous search for permanent happiness, it’s sincere in a way that the best interpretations are.
For longtime Balloranking fans expecting the blues depths of Trench Kid and Ghetto Gospel, this album will definitely be a letdown. He doesn’t dive into personal experiences as much, perhaps well-exhausted on earlier tapes, but more likely a product of his desire to explore Dance genres (Amapiano, Dance, and 3-step). Unfortunately, this also leaves Baby Thug lacking the intimate tether of earlier projects. It doesn’t help that song arrangements on the project are overtly limited to the point where you can predict whether a hook or second verse comes next or where the instrumental break will come in, without missing a beat. There are barely any risks, bar the raised octave on Pami.
Baby Thug is also evidence that further adoptions of Amapiano or any of its related genres are only as good as the compositions. This year, we’ve seen solid examples of that in the three biggest mainstream drops so far, particularly on Omah Lay’s CLARITY OF MIND. Anything else but innovation on what is a tired sound would be redundant, especially not for a street-hop-leaning project. The saving grace in all of this is that Balloranking sprinkles just enough humour and street stoicism into his verses to keep listeners engaged.
For a first album in 2 years, Baby Thug is an underwhelming return. Certainly not after the year Dapper just had (Bhadboi OML’s Bhad Boi (Deluxe), T.I Blaze’s Shakur (Deluxe) and TML Vibez’s A Sweet Songs 4 You (with Lasmid) and Street Kid’s Diary). Back to the drawing board, it is.
