By the time DaBaby's second album, Kirk, debuted at No. 1 this fall, the North Carolina rapper was already on his way to supernova status thanks to his first album, Baby on Baby, released just six months earlier. There was something special about him: funny, personable, entertaining in a way you couldn't contain in a frame. What really struck a chord, though, was that he was a traditionalist — rapping and enunciating in line with the form as it sounded two or three decades ago.