Yes, and the credits back it up. Dominique Jones is listed first among the writers on every track of My Turn and on all 23 tracks of It's Only Me, and the other names beside his belong to the producers who built the beats and to cleared samples, not to outside lyricists. What he does not do is write on paper. Quality Control's longtime engineer Thomas "Tillie" Mann told Revolt that 90-95% of the songs coming out of the label are not written down: a producer plays a beat, the rapper mumbles a few words, and within fifteen minutes there is a hook or half a verse. Industry voting bodies treat him as an author too, with Songwriter of the Year taken three times at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards (2021, 2022 and 2024). The one wrinkle he raised himself: he told the German outlet 16 Bars that when he was learning to rap he paid Gunna about $100 to write songs so he could practice recording them, and none of those were released. He later told Big Boy TV, "Gunna ain't never wrote no song for me," saying Gunna showed him how to rap rather than supplying his verses.
By the Numbers
5
Studio Albums
93
Tracks Credited
100%
Self-Written
76 million digital units in the US
Records Sold
11
Years Active
292
Collaborators
Authorship Breakdown 93 / 93 self-written
Who wrote the songs?
Across all 93 tracks: how many Lil Baby wrote alone, how many they co-wrote, and how many were written by others. The bracket marks every track they hold any writing credit on.
Lil Baby has a writing credit100%
100%
Sole author0tracks0%
Co-written93tracks100%
Outside writers0tracks0%
Role Fingerprint how they contribute
Lil Baby's roles across the catalogue
Share of all 93 tracks where they are personally credited, by role.
Lyricist (words)100%
Composer (music)100%
Producer0%
Performer100%
Authorship Over Time writing credit per album
Lil Baby's writing credit per album, in release order. Hover any bar for the album.
avg 100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
100%
2018Harder Than Ever
2020My Turn
2021The Voice of the Heroes
2022It's Only Me
2025WHAM
Early · 100% written
Late · 100% written
Authorship by Decade track-weighted
100%
2010s
Harder Than Ever
100%
2020s
My Turn, The Voice of the Heroes +2 more
Authorship Spectrum pure performer to complete author
Where Lil Baby sits on the scale from a pure performer (0%, sings songs written by others) to a complete author (100%, writes everything). The bright marker is their catalogue authorship score, plotted against other artists on the site.
Lil Baby
Other artists on the site
Reference artists spread across the scale, closest by genre and era.
Written by Lil Baby, Southside, Dominique Armani Jones, Joshua Luellen
Co-wrote
Yes Indeed
Harder Than Ever
Written by Lil Baby, Drake, Wheezy, B-Rackz, Dominique Armani Jones, Aubrey Graham, Wesley Glass, Branden Brown
Co-wrote
Woah
My Turn
Written by Lil Baby, Quay Global, Dominique Armani Jones, Chris Rosser
Co-wrote
Sum 2 Prove
My Turn
Written by Lil Baby, Twysted Genius, Dominique Armani Jones, Deundraeus Portis
Co-wrote
Emotionally Scarred
My Turn
Written by Lil Baby, Twysted Genius, Dominique Armani Jones, Deundraeus Portis
Co-wrote
Voice of the Heroes
The Voice of the Heroes
Written by Lil Baby, Lil Durk, TouchOfTrent, Haze, Dominique Armani Jones, Durk Derrick Banks, Trenton Turner, Ethan Hayes
Co-wrote
In a Minute
It's Only Me
Written by Lil Baby, Kaigoinkrazy, Haze, Ellie Goulding, Jim Eliot, Howard New, Dominique Armani Jones, Kai Hasegawa, Ethan Hayes, Elena Jane Goulding
Co-wrote
Heyy
It's Only Me
Written by Lil Baby, Harto, Hoops, King LeeBoy, Dominique Armani Jones, Ryan Hartlove, Henri Velasco, Leon Lightfoot III
Co-wrote
None of the signature songs above fall in this category.
Discography 5 albums
Drip Harder, his 2018 release with Gunna, is catalogued by Wikipedia as a collaborative mixtape rather than a studio album, so it is not listed here. The Voice of the Heroes, his 2021 album with Lil Durk, is a collaborative studio album and is included.
Bubble size = tracks worked on together. Showing the 150 most frequent of 275. DD Durk Derrick Banks · QG Quay Global · W Wheezy
The Authorship Story
Data Insight
Lil Baby holds a writing credit on all 93 tracks across five albums and not one of them is written alone. Producers carry the co-writes rather than any single songwriting partner, with Quay Global on 13 tracks, Wheezy on 10 and Murda Beatz on 7, which is how an Atlanta trap record gets assembled. The one name that reads differently is Lil Durk at 18, and that number is a whole album, the 2021 joint record The Voice of the Heroes. Nothing across the five albums is left undocumented, so the shape here is complete rather than partial.
Quick Facts
Number-one albums on the Billboard 200Four
Entries on the Billboard Hot 100155
Top-ten entries on the Billboard Hot 10013
Peak of "The Bigger Picture" on the Billboard Hot 100No. 3
Grammy Awards wonOne, for Best Melodic Rap Performance
Songwriter of the Year wins at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music AwardsThree (2021, 2022, 2024)
Creative Fingerprint
Dominique Jones is the first name in the writer line of every track on My Turn and all 23 on It's Only Me, with the only other credits going to the beatmakers and to cleared samples, which lines up with how Quality Control's engineer describes the room: a producer plays something, Baby mumbles a few words, and fifteen minutes later there is a hook or half a verse.
The Story
Lil Baby is an American rapper, singer and songwriter, born Dominique Armani Jones in Atlanta in 1994. He broke through on the 2017 mixtapes Harder than Hard and Too Hard, the first of which produced his opening Billboard Hot 100 entry with "My Dawg". He signed to Quality Control Music and released his debut album Harder Than Ever in 2018, which reached number three on the Billboard 200 behind the top-ten single "Yes Indeed" with Drake. My Turn took him to number one in 2020, and It's Only Me and WHAM repeated that. He writes in the Atlanta trap tradition, where a track is built in the room with its producers and the writing credit spreads across whoever was there.
Awards & Recognition
Best Melodic Rap Performance for "Hurricane" at the Grammy Awards (2022)
Best New Artist at the BET Awards (2019)
Best Male Hip Hop Artist at the BET Awards (2021)
Hip-Hop Artist of the Year at the BET Hip Hop Awards (2021)
Best Duo or Group, with Lil Durk, at the BET Hip Hop Awards (2021)
Best Hip Hop for "Do We Have a Problem?" at the MTV Video Music Awards (2022)
Artist of the Year, all genres, at the Apple Music Awards (2020)
Songwriter of the Year at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards (2021)
Songwriter of the Year at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards (2022)
Songwriter of the Year at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards (2024)
Frequently Asked Questions Lil Baby
Does Lil Baby write his own songs?
Yes, and the credits back it up. Dominique Jones is listed first among the writers on every track of My Turn and on all 23 tracks of It's Only Me, and the other names beside his belong to the producers who built the beats and to cleared samples, not to outside lyricists. What he does not do is write on paper. Quality Control's longtime engineer Thomas "Tillie" Mann told Revolt that 90-95% of the songs coming out of the label are not written down: a producer plays a beat, the rapper mumbles a few words, and within fifteen minutes there is a hook or half a verse. Industry voting bodies treat him as an author too, with Songwriter of the Year taken three times at the ASCAP Rhythm & Soul Music Awards (2021, 2022 and 2024). The one wrinkle he raised himself: he told the German outlet 16 Bars that when he was learning to rap he paid Gunna about $100 to write songs so he could practice recording them, and none of those were released. He later told Big Boy TV, "Gunna ain't never wrote no song for me," saying Gunna showed him how to rap rather than supplying his verses.
Does Lil Baby write his raps down?
Not in the studio. Quality Control's engineer Thomas "Tillie" Mann told Revolt that none of the label's artists write, and that for Migos, Lil Baby and Lil Yachty a producer plays a beat, the rapper starts mumbling a few words, and a hook or half a verse exists within fifteen minutes. He did write earlier in life. He told NPR he used to know songs word for word and would take someone else's record and remake it for himself: "I used to dissect music."
Why do producers appear in the songwriting credits on a Lil Baby song?
Because in trap the person who makes the beat is a co-author of the composition, so the beatmaker's legal name goes in the writer line next to the rapper's. "Woah" is credited to Jones and Chris Rosser, who is the producer Quay Global. "Sum 2 Prove" and "Emotionally Scarred" are credited to Jones and Deundraeus Portis, who is Twysted Genius. "We Paid" adds Rai'Shaun Williams of Section 8. None of those names wrote lyrics.
Who produced "The Bigger Picture"?
Section 8 and Noah. The Wikipedia track listing for My Turn credits the song's writing to Jones, Rai'Shaun Williams of Section 8 and Noah Pettigrew, which is the whole credit: one rapper and two beatmakers. He told Rolling Stone he did not think of it as a protest song, saying, "I just rap about my life, all my songs are basically about me. It was at a point where I felt I needed to say something."
Did Gunna write raps for Lil Baby?
He was paid to, once, before any of it came out. Lil Baby told 16 Bars that he paid Gunna around $100 to write songs when he first started rapping, purely as practice, and that he never released them. Weeks later on Big Boy TV he pushed back on how it had been read, saying Gunna never wrote a song for him and only showed him how to rap. Genius and Complex both covered the exchange.
How did Lil Baby learn to rap?
In the room, from people already doing it. Rolling Stone reports that Quality Control's Kevin "Coach K" Lee pushed him to try rapping when he was a teenager hanging around the studio, and that Baby then recruited Young Thug and Gunna to teach him. Gunna's lessons were mechanical rather than lyrical: how to record, how to go back and lay ad-libs, how to save a song and send it to his phone.
Who are Lil Baby's regular collaborators?
On the boards, Quay Global, Twysted Genius, Section 8, Tay Keith, Murda Beatz, Wheezy and ATL Jacob recur across My Turn and It's Only Me, with Wheezy and Murda Beatz carrying through to later records. On the microphone, Gunna, Young Thug, Future, 42 Dugg, Rylo Rodriguez, Drake and Lil Durk, who shares a full album with him in The Voice of the Heroes.
Has the industry recognized Lil Baby as a songwriter rather than just a performer?
Three times over at ASCAP, where he took Songwriter of the Year at the Rhythm & Soul Music Awards in 2021, 2022 and 2024. He also picked up two Album of the Year nominations at the Grammy Awards (2022) specifically as a featured artist and songwriter, for Donda and for Back of My Mind.
How fast does Lil Baby record?
Fast enough that the release schedule struggled to keep up. Rolling Stone counts four projects released in 2017 and three more the following year, built on a formula from Quality Control CEO Pierre "Pee" Thomas of gathering whatever songs Baby had lying around, sequencing them and putting them out. The same piece describes him working at a frighteningly productive pace.
Does Lil Baby use ghostwriters now?
There is no published credit suggesting it. Across My Turn, It's Only Me and WHAM the writer lines pair his legal name with the producers of each track, and where a name from well outside that circle turns up, such as Helen Adu on "Real Spill" or Ellie Goulding on "In a Minute", it appears on that one song among a longer credit list rather than running through the record.
Lil Baby
