Target Practice: Lil’ Romeo “My Baby”

Welcome to Target Practice where bad popular songs of the past and present get shot. In the 90s, the South has slowly started to make its impact on hip-hop and out of the South came two prominent labels, Cash Money Records and No Limit Records. I’ve ragged on Cash Money so many times and I have yet to talk about No Limit, so let’s remedy that. No Limit Records was formed in 1990 by Percy Miller a.k.a. Master P, who started out distributing records independently in San Francisco. Then in 1996, he moved the label to New Orleans, signed some new local talent and signed a distribution deal with Priority Records. After that, the label saw a ton of success through the rest of the decade. I’ll talk more about the quality of No Limit’s music in a particular post coming up later this month and maybe a future Target Practice, but all I can tell you is that they lived up to quantity over quality, releasing a gang load of albums a year with too many tracks featuring too many people and Master P’s presence AND some horrible artwork that you would see on some struggle rapper’s mixtape. Out of the millions of artists signed to No Limit, one of them is Master P’s own son Lil’ Romeo (or Romeo now), who is the subject to today’s Target Practice. Before ICDC College commercials, Lil Romeo was the family-friendly rapper of the early 2000s along with Lil Bow Wow and this is his biggest hit, My Baby.

Hotline
Can I request a song?
Sure
“My Baby” by Lil’ Romeo
You got that

You know what I think when a song starts off with somebody calling a radio station to request said song? I think it stinks of desperation.

Oh Romeo give me a chance
(Uh uhh too young I don’t need a girlfriend)
Walk me home from school anyway
(Heheh, O-kay)
Oh Romeo the cutest boy I know
(I know, I know)
So let me be your… girlfriend

I have a question about this hook. Why is there a grown ass woman trying to get with obviously an 11 year old boy? Why doesn’t anyone arrest her for attempted molestation? Why isn’t she a registered sex offender? And more importantly, why am I constantly running into songs with pedophilic implications?!

They call me lil P, I represent the CP3
Calliope ya heard of me, straight from New Orleans

Big deal, kid. You didn’t exactly go through the struggle considering who your father is.

Gotta Uncle named Silkk and a Uncle named C

I’m pretty sure your target demographic doesn’t know who your uncles are nor should they since one of them has Murder in their rap name and is currently in jail for murder. Might as well come out and say “I have an uncle named Rape Face.” I’ll give No Limit this; say what you want about them, but at least they’re not fake.

I been dribbling the ball since the age of 3
I got game like Kobe, dunk it like Poppa P

Is that why you’ve only played college basketball for a few years?

Once I’m in the zone ain’t no stoppin’ me
you can jumpa baby humma girls be jockin’ me
them Miller boyz wear No Limit gear from head to feet

Aww, how adorable. He’s trying to be cool. You’ll get there one day, kid. You’ll get there.

It’s like that whodi (you got me crazy)
It’s like that whodi (I want to be your lady)
It’s like that whodi (why won’t you be my baby)
It’s like that whodi (can’t no girl fade me)
meet me at the skating rink

Again, am I the only one noticing that there’s obviously a grown woman singing about wanting to get with an obvious minor? Is this raising red flags for anyone?

11 years old, makin’ A’s and B’s
and these lil mommy’s can’t keep their hands off me

when you see me in the streets holla “what’s up doc?”
I gotta a bugs bunny chain wit a matchin’ watch

I make you jump like Kris Kross, bounce like Bow
I’m the next generation, I came to lock it down

Really? You’re the next generation? You came to lock it down? Right. Kris Kross didn’t last and the last time Bow Wow was relevant was hosting a video countdown show that was pretty much in its deathbed. As for you, Romeo?

‘Nuff said.

I’m a little boy, but live a big man’s life
I got girls passin’ up wanna be my wife
I got grown women wanna be in my life

You know what you should be doing instead of bragging about grown women wanting to be in your life? Calling the cops.

by the time I reach 18 I’m not gon be nothin’ nice
I’m that R-O-M-E-O, and after high school
I’m goin’ straight to the pro’s bounce, bounce

Well… the farthest you’ve gotten was two seasons with the USC Trojans. I wouldn’t call that going to the pros.

Soldier boy I want u to myself
I don’t want them girls around
Your the flyest thing up in here boy
and that’s why it’s goin down
I heard they call you Romeo
Well I’m your Julliet
u must be playin hide and seek
cause boy you’re hard to catch

Screw this. Lyrical analysis over.

This song is both pathetic and disturbing. It lazily rips off the Jackson 5’s I Want You Back on nearly every level from the beat to the way it’s sung. Romeo isn’t the worst rapper out there, but he’s mediocre as fuck. His bars are nothing but basic bragging about how cool he is and how all the chicks want him. There’s no witty punchlines or wordplay or anything to make it entertaining. As I’ve ragged on constantly through the review, adding an adult woman to sing about how much she wants the then-underage Romeo adds an unneeded level of squick to the song. I don’t feel comfortable listening to it. How did anyone not catch this when they were making this? I know what some of you are thinking and I get it. This is obviously a vapid pop-rap song that panders to easily-impressed middle school girls and it’s probably bad taste to rag on a kid, but to not call out the shittiness of this song and others like it would be like not fixing a small hole in your shirt, the problem is only going to get bigger when it’s not fixed. Next Target Practice, we look at a song from a New York rapper who asks the hard-hitting important questions about America.

Peace!!

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All Along The Watchtower-The Jimi Hendrix Experience

Love And Happiness-Al Green

Shining Star-Earth Wind & Fire (for Maurice White, R.I.P.)