Babyboii’s Pelham Parkway is the kind of track that makes you want to dramatically lean against a building in the Bronx while pretending you’ve got a tragic backstory, even if in reality you’re just waiting for a bus.
The first thing you notice is the beat. Yes, it’s technically trap; you’ve got your hi-hats ticking away like an impatient watch and your 808s keeping time like a very polite earthquake, but it’s also… polite. This isn’t “blare it in a club until someone throws up in the corner” trap. This is “low volume in your headphones while you wander past a deli at 11 p.m.” trap. There’s a softness to it, a kind of streetlamp glow that feels distinctly New York, and very specifically not Times Square New York. More like “three stops from where tourists get off the train” New York.
Babyboii’s flow sits somewhere between Open Mike Eagle’s wry storytelling and Quelle Chris’s ability to sound like he’s casually chatting while low-key dismantling the entire room. His bars are precise without being fussy, slipping from image to image like he’s just flipping through a mental photo album. A lot of rappers talk about their city in big, cinematic sweeps; Babyboii zooms in so far you can almost smell the hot asphalt.
The hook, deceptively simple, sticks to your brain like a sticker you can’t quite peel off cleanly. It’s not shouty or desperate for attention. It’s the opposite; it’s cool in the way that actually makes you lean in closer, because you want to catch it. Like that one person in a group conversation who barely talks but when they do, everyone shuts up.
There’s this sense, throughout Pelham Parkway, that nothing is being overworked. And I mean that in a good way, in the same way a chef with actual confidence doesn’t drown everything in sauce. Babyboii apparently wrote the lyrics in a kind of effortless flow, and that lack of strain translates. The pauses between lines feel intentional, like the beat and the vocal are giving each other space rather than fighting for it. Imagine if most rap tracks are a crowded bus at rush hour; this one’s the same bus, but half-empty, and you’ve got the good seat.
Now, I could spend another few paragraphs dissecting the influences here like the subtle Kanye-ish rhythm or the structural neatness of Quelle Chris’s storytelling but honestly, the real joy is that Babyboii’s Pelham Parkway feels lived in. It’s not a tourism brochure for the Bronx; it’s the diary entry you write on the train home after midnight, when the city is still loud but you’ve finally found a moment to think.
With an album on the way, this track feels like a quiet flex. Not the “look at me, I’m the best” kind, but the far more dangerous “look at me, I know exactly what I’m doing” kind. If the rest of the record carries this same level of restraint and precision, Babyboii’s about to give us something worth walking a few extra subway stops for.
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About the Author
A tenured media critic known working as a ghost writer, freelance critic for various publications around the world, the former lead writer of review blogspace Atop The Treehouse and content creator for Manila Bulletin.
