With I Will Make a Baby in this Damn Economy, Fat Tony embodies the kind of quixotic figure he would rap about; a singular entity who’s motivated, confident, and hungry; a perpetual-motion-machine locked in a staring contest with his country. Ever since 2020’s Wake Up and Exotica, he’s demonstrated he is in his own lane as a professional rapper with the mind of a magician, as quick to conjure an image as pull it out from under you, deftly maneuvering through so many details and references a listener feels as if they have witnessed the work of an illusionist. He paints these canvases inside of songs that are pocket-sized diaries replete with acute observations, character studies, microdoses of storytelling, and single-minded ruminations on a topic that bud, blossom, and fade before too long. Make a Baby cements Tony’s status as someone whose albums are not so much lyrically-lyrical as they are picaresque.