Quavo Previews ‘Rocket Power’ Solo Album With Surprise ‘Who Wit Me’ Dugout Performance at Braves Game
Quavo served up an unexpected treat for the 40,000 fans who turned out for Tuesday night’s (Aug. 15) Atlanta Braves game against the cellar-dweller New York Yankees. The hometown team — who have a comfortable 10-plus game lead over the Phillies in the NL East — cleared some room on the top of their dugout for the Migos member to preview his upcoming solo album, Rocket Power, which is due out on Friday (Aug. 18).
Wearing a No. 94 jersey with his album title across the shoulders, Quavo bounced back-and-forth across the dugout shouting the chorus of his new single, “Who Wit Me,” at a packed Truist Park, slipping in an ad-lib shout-out to his hometown on the song that honors his late nephew, Migos member TakeOff.
“My nephew just told me he with it/ Even my sister just tole me they with it/ I’m sayin’, I’m sayin’ who with me,” he rapped along to the track. TakeOff (born Kirshnik Khari Ball) was shot and killed during a private party he attended in downtown Houston with his uncle on Nov. 1, 2022.
“If you ready for the Braves let me get a ‘Yes sir!,'” Quavo shouted to the crowd cheering on the team with the best record in the majors. Quavo’s anticipated second solo venture will follow-up his 2018 solo debut, Quavo Huncho, which peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart; the rapper also teamed up with Travis Scott in 2017 for the joint album Huncho Jack, Jack Huncho.
Speaking about the loss of TakeOff in a recent interview, Quavo said, “I think about him all the time. Sometimes I cry myself to sleep.” He also described how he had to change his work flow during the making of Rocket Power due to the loss. While he would normally cut the hook and the verse and show it to his Migos bandmates — which also includes Offset — “Now he’s [TakeOff] gone and I don’t have nobody to play the music for… I just try to connect with the earth and just try to hear them like that.”
Quavo said the album — which was first teased back in May — is fueled by his late nephew and partner-in-rhyme’s spirit. “All the pain, all the hard times, all the times I cried and all the times I just made music [to cope with loss],” he said. “And to pull up and try to play songs and he’s not there, and I’m just trying to get this fuel from above and this feeling from the sky and just call it Rocket Power.”
Check out Quavo’s performance below.
Gil Kaufman
Billboard