"Cry Baby" is a song by American rapper Megan Thee Stallion, featuring fellow American rapper DaBaby. Their third collaboration, it was released on November 20, 2020, as the third track from Megan's debut studio album, Good News, and was sent to urban contemporary radio as the fourth single from the album on February 3, 2021. A bass-heavy, raunchy track, it finds the rappers talking about their busy sex lives. The song received mostly positive reviews from critics, with Megan singled out, and some comparing it to one of their previous collaborations, Megan's 2019 song, "Cash Shit". It also spawned a TikTok dance challenge.
An adult-themed Toy Story-inspired music video directed by Colin Tilley was released on February 3, 2021, and features Megan and DaBaby as dolls that come to life in a playing house, drag racing and dancing around a toy store.
Background
The song marks the third collaboration between Megan and DaBaby, following Megan's 2019 song "Cash Shit", and DaBaby's 2020 song "Nasty", the latter song also with American singer-songwriter Ashanti. both of which charted on the Billboard Hot 100. In a 2020 interview, Megan expressed interest in doing a full-length project with DaBaby, stating that they have already discussed it and they "definitely need to get to work on that". "Cry Baby" went viral on the video-sharing app, TikTok, where it spawned a dance challenge called the #CryBabyChallenge. Megan posted a video of her doing the dance on Instagram on February 6, 2021. The song amassed over 120 million streams by February 2021. Megan teased the song's video a month before its release, after DaBaby received criticism from fans for collaborating with Tory Lanez, who allegedly shot Megan in 2020. Lanez had posted a video of him and DaBaby working together, however Megan clarified in a tweet that the collaboration was old and its release was revoked in the wake of the shooting, while also revealing that the "Cry Baby" video was on the way.
Composition
"Cry Baby" is a throbbing, bouncy, slow, brooding, "tic-tock-ing" song, with a "haunting", looped backing track of a crying baby, and "heavy, synth-bass-laden" set of melodies. Lyrically, it sees Megan and DaBaby listing off their sexual partners, with Megan employing her alter ego, Hot Girl Meg. She delivers a "frenetic" flow about growing impatient and frustrated with her lover who leaves her unsatisfied. She is also heard making "fake-me-out" crying noises. Riff magazine's Tim Hoffman noted "Megan taking ownership of her sexuality, as she plays on the tropes of sexist attitudes toward women in hip-hop with a tongue-in-cheek reversal about the men she's got wrapped around her finger". DaBaby, meanwhile, with his distinctive "laconic" flow, delivers sexually explicit lyrics, on par with Megan's. He also pays homage to Megan's posterior with the line "NBA playoffs that ass–a bubble".