The crown is for the taking and Lil Baby has walked away with it in the category of Male Rapper of the Year for the XXL Awards 2022.

The Atlanta rapper beat out fellow nominees Drake, J. Cole, Kanye West, Moneybagg Yo, Nas and Tyler, The Creator for the award, announced today (Jan. 24). The My Turn artist was also a nominee in the Album of the Year and Song of the Year category as well.

Lil Baby's honor is well deserved. In 2021, he dropped his collaborative project with Lil Durk called The Voice of the Heroes, which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 album chart.

The rhymer was selected by XXL's esteemed Awards Board, which consists of dozens of music industry execs, insiders and power players including South Coast Music Group founder Arnold Taylor, Top Dawg Entertainment CEO Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith, Victor Victor Worldwide CEO Steven Victor, Executive Vice President at RCA Records Carolyn Williams, Co-CEO of Ebony Sun Entertainment Chaka Zulu, Executive Vice-President at Island Records LaTrice Burnette and others. Plus, veteran rappers and producers like Fat Joe, Bun B, Run The Jewels, Mike Dean, Juicy J, 50 Cent and more are also members of the Awards Board.

Our panel chose from 11 categories for this year's awards including Artist of the Year, Male Rapper of the Year, Best New Artist of the Year, Producer of the Year, Performer of the Year, Video of the Year, Lyricist of the Year, Female Rapper of the Year, Album of the Year, Hip-Hop's Humanitarian of the Year and Song of the Year. The People's Champ Award was voted on by the fans, who had the choice between 20 of some of top rappers in the rap game.

Congrats to Lil Baby for winning Male Rapper of the Year!

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