Baby Keem Says He Doesn't Want to Be Better Than the Big Three - He Wants to Be Better Than Everyone

Jun 13
8 min read

There is a question that gets asked of almost every young rapper at some point in their career, usually once they have had enough success that the question stops sounding ridiculous. It goes something like this: do you see yourself stepping into the conversation with Kendrick, Drake, and Cole - the so-called Big Three of modern hip-hop?

Most artists answer it carefully. They say something about respect, about not wanting to disrespect the greats, about just focusing on their own lane. It is the rap equivalent of a politician saying they are flattered by the question but won't be commenting on hypotheticals.

Baby Keem did not do that.

On Wednesday, June 10, the Las Vegas rapper sat down with the YouTube interviewer Elsie Not Elise for a conversation that was supposed to be about his second album, Ca$ino, his creative process, and where his head is at these days. And at some point, the conversation drifted toward exactly that question - the Big Three question - and Keem's answer has been bouncing around hip-hop media and social platforms ever since.

His response, in essence, was that the question itself was too small.

What He Actually Said

Keem made it clear he was not interested in being measured against a specific trio of his contemporaries, no matter how dominant that trio currently is. He pushed back on the framing entirely - arguing that thinking in terms of generational rankings and "who's the best of this era" puts an artificial ceiling on what an artist can actually become.

His point, as he laid it out, was something closer to this: why would you spend your career trying to be the best among three specific people, when the actual goal should be standing alongside the greatest artists of all time, full stop, with no era attached? Being the best of a "weaker group," as he put it, was never the ambition. The ambition is the conversation that includes everyone - every era, every generation, the entire history of the genre.

It is a bold thing to say out loud. It is an even bolder thing to say while sitting two feet from a camera that you know is going to clip it, caption it, and send it everywhere within hours. Keem knew exactly what he was doing.

Elsewhere in the same conversation, he opened up about the creative thinking behind one of Ca$ino's standout tracks, "Die for My Bitch," revealing that the song was inspired by the late XXXTentacion - specifically, by the idea that an artist does not have to choose a lane.

You can sing. You can rap. You can do both at a high level, in the same song, without it feeling like a compromise. It is the kind of comment that, on its own, would barely register as news. Paired with the Big Three remarks, though, it painted a fuller picture of where Keem's head is right now: thinking in terms of range, ambition, and refusing to be boxed in by anyone's categories - including the ones that would otherwise be considered compliments.

Why "The Big Three" Carries So Much Weight Right Now

To understand why this clip travelled as fast as it did, you have to understand what "the Big Three" actually represents in 2026.

For years, Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and J. Cole were treated as a kind of unofficial holy trinity - the three artists whose names came up whenever anyone tried to define who was actually running hip-hop. It was shorthand. A way of acknowledging that these three, more than anyone else of their generation, had reshaped what was commercially and critically possible in the genre.

And then, in 2024, the trinity cracked. Kendrick and Drake went to war - not a friendly back-and-forth, but a genuinely vicious, career-defining conflict that ended about as decisively as these things ever do. "Not Like Us" became one of the biggest cultural moments in recent hip-hop history. J. Cole, who had briefly stepped into the conflict before retreating and apologising, found himself in an awkward position relative to both men.

The phrase "Big Three" has not disappeared since then, but it carries a different weight. It is no longer just a description of dominance - it is also, depending on who you ask, a description of a fracture. For an artist to say, in 2026, that he is not interested in being measured against that specific group is to wade into a conversation that is already loaded with two years of unresolved tension.

Keem's connection to one member of that trio makes it even more complicated - and even more interesting.

The Kendrick Connection - The Part Everyone Is Thinking About

Baby Keem is not some outsider lobbing opinions from a distance. He is Kendrick Lamar's cousin. The two have worked together repeatedly - most famously on "Family Ties," the song that won them a Grammy together, and more recently on "Good Flirts," the lead single from Ca$ino, which features both Kendrick and singer Momo Boyd.

Keem performed "Family Ties" alongside Kendrick during the Grand National Tour earlier this year - walking out at one of the biggest stops on what has been one of the most successful tours of Kendrick's career, in the immediate afterglow of the Drake feud and the Super Bowl halftime show. The two are not just collaborators. They are family, in the literal sense, and their careers have been intertwined for years.

So when Keem says he is not interested in being compared to the Big Three - a group that includes his own cousin, someone he has won Grammys with, someone whose tour stage he has shared this very year - it lands very differently than if some unrelated up-and-comer said the same thing. It is not a shot at Kendrick. If anything, reading the comments in full context, it reads more like Keem refusing to even enter a conversation where his cousin's name might get dragged into a "well, actually, is Baby Keem better than Kendrick" debate, which is exactly the kind of debate the internet loves to manufacture regardless of what anyone actually says.

By rejecting the premise of the question entirely - by refusing to play the "who's better" game on the terms it was offered - Keem arguably did Kendrick a favour as much as himself. Nobody gets to write the headline "Baby Keem Says He's Better Than His Cousin" out of this, because that is not what he said. What he said was bigger, vaguer, and considerably harder to turn into a feud.

Does Ca$ino Back Up the Confidence?

Confidence is cheap if the music doesn't support it. So it is worth asking - does Baby Keem's recent output justify any of this?

Ca$ino arrived in February 2026, five years after his debut album The Melodic Blue, which was largely considered one of the more inventive and critically respected hip-hop debuts of its era. The wait for a follow-up was long enough that it became its own talking point - Complex's review of Ca$ino was literally framed around the question of whether five years was worth it.

The album itself is a tightly constructed 37 minutes, produced largely by Keem himself alongside an impressive list of collaborators - Sounwave, Cardo, Danja, and others who have worked extensively with Kendrick and across the upper tier of contemporary hip-hop and R&B production. "Good Flirts," the lead single, samples Burt Bacharach's "Walk On By" and folds Kendrick and Momo Boyd into a song that feels simultaneously nostalgic and current. "Birds & the Bees" samples Feist's "Honey Honey" and finds Keem in a reflective, almost tender mode that is a long way from the chaotic energy that made him famous on tracks like "Orange Soda."

The reception to Ca$ino was strong, if not universally rapturous - the kind of album that critics describe as a confident, mature step forward rather than a generational reset. Which is, in a way, exactly the gap between where Keem currently sits and where the Big Three sit. Kendrick, Drake, and Cole are measured in terms of cultural impact and chart dominance on a scale that very few artists ever reach. Keem, at 25, is still building toward that - but the trajectory, the Grammy, the production talent he can call on, and the family connection to one of the most important artists of this generation all suggest he is not speaking from nowhere.

The Bigger Pattern - Why Everyone Keeps Talking About the Big Three

Baby Keem's comments did not happen in isolation. They landed in a week where the Big Three - and the Kendrick-Drake fallout specifically - has been an almost constant background hum across hip-hop media. DJ Akademiks has been discussing Drake's mindset during the original beef. 6ix9ine has been wading into a separate dispute involving Drake and his label, taking shots at Kendrick along the way. Jay-Z's freestyle from the Roots Picnic last month, which took aim at several names across the industry, is still being dissected and debated by figures like Cam'ron.

Two years on from the most consequential rap beef of the decade, hip-hop has not moved past it - it has just absorbed it into the wallpaper. Every new artist who comes up now does so in a landscape where the Big Three conversation is the default reference point, whether they want it to be or not. Baby Keem's interview is notable not because he said something nobody has ever said before, but because he said it cleanly, on the record, with a direct personal connection to the centre of the storm, and the internet did exactly what the internet does with clips like that.

Whether Baby Keem ever gets mentioned in the same breath as Kendrick, Drake, and Cole as a matter of consensus is something only time and a lot more music will decide. What he made clear on Wednesday is that he isn't particularly interested in that specific bar. He is aiming somewhere else entirely - somewhere with no ceiling, no era, and no group of three.

Big talk. But in hip-hop, big talk has always been part of the job description. The only question that ever really matters is what comes next.

Key Facts

Baby Keem's comments about the Big Three came from an interview with YouTube creator Elsie Not Elise, recorded June 10, 2026.
He rejected being compared to a specific "Big Three," saying his goal is to be ranked among the greatest of all time, regardless of era.
He also discussed his song "Die for My B**ch," revealing it was inspired by the late XXXTentacion's approach to blending singing and rapping.
Baby Keem is Kendrick Lamar's cousin and has collaborated with him on "Family Ties" (Grammy-winning) and "Good Flirts."
His second album, Ca$ino, was released February 20, 2026, five years after his debut The Melodic Blue.
Ca$ino features production from Sounwave, Cardo, Danja, and other major hip-hop and R&B producers.
The "Big Three" traditionally refers to Kendrick Lamar, Drake, and J. Cole.
The Kendrick-Drake feud, which peaked in 2024 with "Not Like Us," remains a constant reference point across hip-hop media in 2026.

References

Written by Mppress