The night before Baby Keem’s new album Ca$ino is set to drop, Momo Boyd is clammed up. I’ve caught her in the car, traveling in between work and social engagements in Los Angeles, to talk about her feature on the rapper’s latest project and she’s weighing what she can say and what she can’t. “I’ve signed an NDA,” she says apologetically when I ask how she linked up with Keem in the first place. It’s as good an indicator as any of just how big a deal — and high stakes — the release is expected to be.
Boyd is featured on the song “Good Flirts,” the album’s sultry, simmering slow burn that comes midway through and also features a laidback verse from none other than Keem’s cousin and otherwise reigning king of rap right now, Kendrick Lamar. Boyd says she was hand-selected for her part by music director and Lamar colleague Dave Free. On the track, she chants the coy hook and shares a quippy repartee with Lamar, a cheeky, if modest, use of her talents; the 25-year-old is better known as the velvety voiced belter from Infinity Song, the folkish, rockish, popish quartet she’s in with her siblings. Still, Boyd tells me, she’s over the moon about the unexpected opportunity that’s poised to jet her star upward. “It’s a great time to be me,” she says.
Ahead, Boyd shares the story of how her feature came together.
