Lil Baby is one of the hottest rappers in the game right now.
But being a superstar can’t always protect you from the law.
The rapper was recently arrested in France for transporting narcotics
while hanging out with James Harden at Paris Fashion Week.
Let’s take a closer look at what happened.
Lil Baby’s career has only gone up since he came in the game.
He’s gone from being the rap industry’s plug to one of raps hottest artists
in under five years and has continued to grow with every new project.
But Baby is still a real ass dude from the streets
and has had his fair share of run-ins with the cops.
The rapper dropped out of high school in the ninth grade for getting in constant fights,
which is when he started hustling in the streets full time.
After that, he was in and out of jail
and eventually got sentenced to two years for possession with intent to sell.
His lawyer got him a plea deal,
but the rapper ended up firing that lawyer
and hiring another one who secured him a placement in a special work program,
where he was told he’d only have to serve 6 months.
Once he arrived at the program,
he realized that it was actually for a year,
not six months like he was told.
Plus, he’d have to pass to be released.
Not long after being admitted,
Baby got into it with another inmate
over racial comments and was severely punished.
He soon realized that if he stayed there,
he’d probably have to keep repeating the program over and over until he passed.
So he decided to leave and take the two years in prison, instead.
While he was locked up,
Baby reconnected with family members and friends from his neighborhood,
some that were doing multiple life sentences
Seeing what could happen if he kept going down that path,
he decided to start changing the way he moved to avoid getting sent back.
After being released he noticed that some of his friends had started rapping.
Baby grew up with dudes like Young Thug and Marlo,
who were building a buzz around that time.
At first, he didn’t have any interest in rapping,
but he started hanging around them and other celebrities in Atlanta.
This is how he became the go-to plug for all the rappers in the city
and got on the radar of Pee and Coach K
from Quality Control Records.
Baby and Pee had known each other for years and after he got out of jail
the record exec tried to encourage him to rap.
Quality Control was already doing big things with the Migos
and Pee felt like Baby could be their next hit.
At first, Baby wasn’t feeling it,
but eventually gave it a try after Young Thug bought him some studio time.
He released his debut project Perfect Timing in 2017
and went on to release a bunch of popular mixtapes
that quickly made him one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers from Atlanta.
Check out our video on Lil Baby Trap Star to Rap Star
for a full breakdown of the rapper’s criminal history and rise to fame.
He followed up with his debut album Harder than Ever in 2018,
which featured his breakout single Yes Indeed featuring Drake,
which exposed the rapper to more mainstream audiences.
Since then, Baby’s career has been on fire,
with each project doing bigger numbers than the last.
Besides a minor traffic violation for failure to signal while changing lanes
and attempting to flee from a police officer,
Baby has stayed out of trouble since becoming a rapper.
But no career is without its ups and downs
and recently it was announced that Lil Baby was arrested in France
for transporting narcotics.
The summer part of Paris Fashion Week was being held between
July 5th and July 8th this year and Lil Baby was in attendance,
along with other celebrities like Kanye West and James Harden.
Baby and James Harden were already captured by Paparazzi hanging out together
at a Balenciaga Fashion show,
looking a little annoyed to be dealing with the cameras.
Kanye was also there and made headlines for wearing a full face mask,
which he kept on for the entire show.
But that’s just Kanye being Kanye.
Other celebrities in attendance included Rihanna, Anna Wintour, and Bella Hadid.
So, it was a pretty high-profile event.
Lil Baby has been hanging out in some powerful social circles lately.
After the success of his single The Bigger Picture,
where he rapped about the death of George Floyd and police brutality,
Lil Baby got an invite to the White House to meet with Vice President Kamala Harris.
That was a major moment in his career
and showed everyone,
he was making serious power moves.
He’s also been spotted chillin with James Harden a lot recently.
Over the 4th of July,
the two were seen sharing a laugh in the background of a video
of Lil Uzi Vert breakdancing.
The video was taken by JT of the City Girls
who Uzi is dating and took place at the $50 million estate of Michael Rubin,
the executive chairman of Fanatics,
the world’s biggest sports merchandising company.
This was a party attended by high-profile guests like Jay-Z, Robert Kraft, and Bon Jovi.
It was also the party where Meek Mill and Travis Scott
allegedly got into a shouting match, but that’s a whole different story.
So, Paris Fashion Week was the perfect place for the artist to mingle
and take advantage of his new superstar status.
But no matter how far a rapper may come,
some things never change,
and Baby ended up getting hit with a crazy charge
after police found weed in the glove compartment of the vehicle he was riding in.
Around 5 pm on the afternoon of July 8th,
police pulled over a vehicle that contained Lil Baby and his entourage.
The car smelled like weed,
so police decided to search it.
They ended up finding 20 grams of marijuana in the glove compartment
and arrested Lil Baby and two of his friends.
James Harden was also present at the time of the arrest
and video footage surfaced of the basketball star arguing with the police.
Harden was questioned and searched
but was not among the three men arrested in the incident.
Footage also came out of Lil Baby being put into the back of a police van,
while Harden is standing on the side of the road not far away.
The craziest part is that they weren’t charged with possession,
but the transportation of narcotics.
They’re making it out to seem like the rapper and his entourage
were moving kilos across the country,
when they were holding less than an ounce.
Plus, it was most likely for personal use only,
unless baby was back to his old ways,
being the plug in Paris.
But different countries have stricter laws
when it comes to drugs
and even though it’s legal in many places,
it’s still against the law in France.
It seems likely that Baby and his team were targeted for being rappers.
News reports don’t mention why the car was pulled over in the first place
and they probably noticed that there were a bunch of popular rappers in town
and decided to keep an eye on them.
At this point, Lil Baby has enough money and celebrity connections to fight the case.
He was released the day after being arrested and only hit with a small fine.
He went on twitter to say: “I’m Good” and let fans know he was heading back to the US
Luckily this didn’t turn into an A$AP Rocky situation
where the rapper was stuck in a foreign jail for months before being released.
Being stuck overseas does come with more problems than being arrested in the US
because you have to get a local lawyer
who understands the law and speaks the language.
Plus, you potentially have to fly back and forth to appear at trial.
But it seems like this is all just a big headline that will result in a slap on the wrist.
Lil Baby has come so far in his career
that he isn’t going to let a little weed charge slow down his grind.
But it does show that no matter how popular of a rapper you are,
it can’t save you from the police, especially in other countries.
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