The engines hit before the music does. When Pigeons & Planes writer Solomon Adams went to see Bby Kell at The Wxillxm, a bare-bones warehouse on Atlanta's West Side, Hellcats were revving in the alley and security was splitting the line by gender: ladies to the right, guys to the left. The venue is pronounced “William,” after its benefactor, the Marietta-raised producer Mike WiLL Made-It. Out back, Adams found guys in iced-out Jesus pieces shooting arcade hoops on astroturf, models who looked ready for a Rick Owens show, and streamers clipfarming the whole thing.
Bby Kell went on after midnight in rainbow makeup, bubblegum-pink nails and sky-high heels, with her friends partying alongside her on stage. She saved “BabyK” for last. When the beat dropped, Adams wrote, the girls in the crowd started screaming.
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That night is the clearest summary of what she's selling: hard Atlanta rap with the volume turned up on cute. Born Rahkell Badie and raised in Stone Mountain, on the East Side, she put her first songs on SoundCloud in 2022 but only started pursuing rap seriously in September 2025. Her debut EP, STRAIGHT POP, was followed by GIRLY POP, an eight-track tape that arrived June 26. This year Karrahbooo brought her out at Rolling Loud Orlando. Most of what follows comes from Adams' profile for Pigeons & Planes, published Oct. 8, and from her own answers in it.
What does Bby Kell sound like?
Raspy and unbothered. Adams places her among the young Atlanta rappers arriving at what may be the tail end of the rage era, the frantic, high-BPM sound led by Destroy Lonely, Ken Carson and Che. That wave keeps the tempo but slows the verses down, closer to the mixtape-era looseness of Gucci Mane and OJ da Juiceman. Adams hears the unhurried cool of fellow East Sider Young Nudy in her delivery, and in her beats an update of the distorted, speaker-rattling bass that Glokk40spazz and LAZER DIM 700 pioneered.
STRAIGHT POP already had range. Adams hears “DAS A M” as pure Mario Kart sugar before “POP OUT” turns darker and, in Adams’ words, more “Playboi Carti-indebted.” By the same account, GIRLY POP polishes everything the EP started: thick plugg production (a melodic, bass-heavy branch of trap), lyrics about partying and a voice that is gruff and soft at once. One of her most popular songs, “2019,” loops a sample of Usher's “U Don't Have to Call” under a lazy flow and a few non sequiturs that, by Adams' account, are genuinely funny. The title, she explained, came from a line she said in the flow about Comme des Garçons, a nod to 2019, when Carti and everybody had the striped shirts and mom jeans. “That was the girl swag,” she said. “So, no, it wasn't no big thing behind that.” When Adams told her 6LACK had described her as gritty but pretty, she didn't argue: “Most definitely.”
From the nail chair to the booth
Music runs in the family. “My mom played the violin and my dad was a rapper as well,” she told Pigeons & Planes. Her own way in came through pop. “My favorite era of pop was probably 2013. It was so fun. I love having fun, and that's really why I started making music.”
Before she rapped, she did nails, including in the studio for rappers like Sk8star and Pradabagshawty. Being in the room while they recorded was the point. “I loved to go to the studio and do nails for people. That was my favorite place to go,” she said. “I love the environment of the studio, honestly.”
Her friends did the rest. For her 20th birthday, they bought her an audio interface, a mic and headphones. She never used them. “I didn't even use it. I still have never used it,” she said. But the push stuck, and she credits the friends who kept telling her she was already the full package. “My friends are my biggest push within all of this. They keep me going, for real.”
Rap isn't her only skill, and she wants that known. She paints, has run a clothing brand, has shot video, sews and crochets. “I'm really good with my hands. I'm creative, all around,” she said. “I like to model. I love clothes.” She has thrown parties too, just two of them, a Halloween party and a Christmas party, and that's around when “Terp” started taking off.
What is GIRLY POP?
It's the aesthetic, the tape's title and, in her telling, her whole personality. “GIRLY POP is my everything! That's how I feel as a person,” she said. “I feel like I'm girly, but I'm gonna pop my shit.” Asked what it looks like, she had an answer ready.
GIRLY POP looks like unicorns holding glocks in the Chanel store.
Bby Kell, Pigeons & Planes
GIRLY POPBby KellListen on Apple Music
The look comes straight from 2013. One of her favorite photographers is Cobra Snake, who shot the indie-sleaze era. “He caught the indie sleaze and all that on camera. It was so beautiful. I just want to bring that back,” she said. She thinks today's underground lost something along the way. “Everybody was just a little more together. It's not like that anymore, it's too many sides.” Asked why, she kept it short: “Ego.”
Her closet backs it up. Her current favorites are a pair of teddy bear shoes she has owned for about two years, “so uncomfortable, but I don't care,” and a neon Balenciaga bomber. “I'm low-key a little tacky,” she said. “But I feel like it works because I'm cute.” The style started at home, watching her auntie get ready for work, and on YouTube, where she grew up on music videos when they were still weird. “I love all types of quirky shit,” she said.
Who does she listen to?
Everyone, from Tame Impala (“Elephant” is her favorite) and Steve Lacy to the YouTube-era videos of Lady Gaga, Beyoncé and Nicki Minaj. Among videos that aren't hers, she named Rihanna and Calvin Harris's “This Is What You Came For,” Björk's “Venus as a Boy” and Beyoncé's “7/11.” Her all-time favorite video is her own “Terp.” “I can always watch that music video and be like, ‘I love that girl,’” she said.
Adams noted that Lucki once posted her and called her “princess of the universe.” Asked how that came about, she said it was simple: “Just being like a fan, loving my music.” When she talks about her direct influences, though, she doesn't name a person. She names a neighborhood.
It’s definitely an East Side sound. A lot of rappers have it, and I like it. And I’m tryna put some girly shit on it because I feel like it hasn't been girl-ified.
Bby Kell, Pigeons & Planes
The day after the show, Adams found her at Bugg's home studio. The Chicago producer made the beat for “i bleed, you bleed,” the song that opens GIRLY POP. She hummed melodies over beats from Bugg and Bakkwoods, then punched in with her favorite adlib, a simple “Yo!” She likes to start every song that way. Asked how it makes her feel, she said: “Like I’m finna get to it. I’m finna start flowing.” She's a connoisseur of other people's adlibs too, from Lil Uzi Vert's to the moments when Lucki runs out of words, hums and laughs. “I love hella adlibs,” she said.
What's next?
Not a box. “I don't think there's one sound that I am just going for. I kind of get bored with it, so I like to switch it up,” she said, adding that she wants to work with singers because she isn't “trying to stay inside a box of just trap music.” The message she wants listeners to take away is the one she lives by. “I want them to be themselves, because that's all that I am in my music,” she said. “I don't feel like I can sing, but I'm still gonna sing.”
Music may not be the final stop either. She calls it “a stepping stone” and wants to model and become a beauty guru. If she could walk for any brand, she'd time-travel to Celine in 2004 or Dolce & Gabbana in 2009; in the present, it's 424, ideally with a Bby Kell collection. For now, the job is the one she described best herself.
I like party music. I like to make music that's going to make somebody feel happy and turn up and want to keep playing it over and over again.
Bby Kell, Pigeons & Planes
- Real name
- Rahkell Badie
- From
- Stone Mountain, Georgia (Atlanta's East Side)
- Got serious about rap
- September 2025
- Projects
- STRAIGHT POP (debut EP); GIRLY POP (June 26, 2026, 8 tracks)
- Live
- Guest of Karrahbooo at Rolling Loud Orlando 2026
