''The Voice of the Heroes'' is a collaborative

studio album An album is a collection of audio recordings issued on compact disc (CD), Phonograph record, vinyl, audio tape, or another medium such as Digital distribution#Music, digital distribution. Albums of recorded sound were developed in the early ...

by American rappers

Lil Baby Dominique Armani Jones (born December 3, 1994), known professionally as Lil Baby, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He rose to mainstream fame in 2017 following the release of his mixtape ''Perfect Timing''. *Alt URL* * His deb ...

and

Lil Durk Durk Derrick Banks (born October 19, 1992), known professionally as Lil Durk, is an American rapper and singer. He is the lead member and founder of the collective and record label Only the Family (OTF). Durk garnered a cult following with the ...

. It was released through

Quality Control Music Quality Control Music (also known as Quality Control or QC) is an American hip hop record label founded by Kevin "Coach K" Lee (Chief operating officer, COO) and Pierre "P" Thomas (Chief executive officer, CEO) in March 2013. Its productions were ...

, 4 Pockets Full,

Only the Family Only the Family, often abbreviated as OTF, is a rap collective from Chicago, Illinois. The group was formed by rapper Lil Durk in 2010. The group is home to recording artists including the late rapper King Von. Record label The OTF label was p ...

, and

Alamo Records Todd Moscowitz is a music industry executive. He is currently the founder and CEO of Alamo Records and the manager of Gucci Mane. Previously, Moscowitz co-founded 300 Entertainment, served as a co-president and CEO of Warner Bros. Records and ...

on June 4, 2021. Its title comes from Durk's childhood nickname of "the Voice" and Baby's nickname of "the Hero" that Lil Durk had given him. The album contains guest appearances from Travis Scott,

Meek Mill Robert Rihmeek Williams (born May 6, 1987), known professionally as Meek Mill, is an American rapper. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, he embarked on his music career as a battle rapper, and later formed a short-lived rap group, ...

Young Thug Jeffery Lamar Williams (born August 16, 1991), known professionally as Young Thug, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. He is considered to be an influential figure of his generation, with his music impacting the modern sound of hip ...

, and

Rod Wave Rodarius Marcell Green (born August 27, 1998), known professionally as Rod Wave, is an American rapper and singer. He is known for his strong voice and incorporation of hip hop and R&B, and has been recognized as a trailblazer of soul-trap. Wa ...

with notable production from

London on da Track London Tyler Holmes (born March 27, 1991), known professionally as London on da Track, is an American record producer, rapper, and songwriter. He is a frequent collaborator of fellow Atlanta rapper Young Thug and has also worked with Kodak Black, ...

Wheezy Wesley Tyler Glass (born October 26, 1992), known professionally as Wheezy, is an American record producer and songwriter. He has worked with artists such as Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Lil Baby, Future, King Von, 21 Savage, Gunna (rapper), Gunna ...

Turbo In an internal combustion engine, a turbocharger (often called a turbo) is a forced induction device that is powered by the flow of exhaust gases. It uses this energy to compress the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to pro ...

, and

Murda Beatz Shane Lee Lindstrom (born February 11, 1994), known professionally as Murda Beatz, is a Canadian record producer. He has produced hit singles like " Butterfly Effect" by Travis Scott, "Back on Road" by Gucci Mane, "Nice for What" by Drake, "Moto ...

. It was preceded by two singles, "

Voice of the Heroes "Voice of the Heroes" is a song by American rappers Lil Baby and Lil Durk. Written alongside producers Touch of Trent and Haze, it was released on May 31, 2021 as the lead single from their namesake collaborative studio album ''The Voice of the ...

", the title and opening track, which was released on May 31, 2021, and "Hats Off" with Travis Scott, which peaked at number 16 on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100.

Background and recording

In February 2021, Durk began posting several images of him and Lil Baby during the video shoot for their song "

Finesse Out the Gang Way In contract bridge and similar games, a finesse is a type of card play technique which will enable a player to win an additional trick or tricks should there be a favorable position of one or more cards in the hands of the opponents. The player a ...

" with the caption "The Voice x The Hero", giving Lil Baby the nickname "The Hero" and himself as "The Voice". The following month, Durk made a post on Instagram with the caption saying if the post reaches 100k comments, he and Lil Baby will release their collaborative tape. On March 15, during an interview with MTV News, Baby confirmed the album's title ''The Voice of the Heroes''. In April, Lil Baby was spotted recording with Travis Scott. The following month, Baby and Durk teased the album's initial May 28 release date, however,

Swizz Beatz Kasseem Daoud Dean (born September 13, 1978), known professionally as Swizz Beatz, is an American record producer, rapper, disc jockey (DJ) and songwriter. Born and raised in New York City, Dean embarked on his musical career as a DJ. At the ag ...

stated that the album was postponed in favour of DMX's posthumous album ''

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

''. On May 23, Baby took to Twitter to announce the album had finished recording and was scheduled for a June 4, 2021 release date.

Release and promotion

On May 31, 2021, the title track was released as the lead single, accompanied by a music video. On June 2, the tracklist of the album was released revealing features from Travis Scott,

, and

. The album was then released on June 4. The following day, the music video for "How It Feels" was released.

Critical reception

''The Voice of the Heroes'' received generally favorable reviews from contemporary music critics, with some critics highlighting the duo's partnership. At

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from professional publications, the album received an

average In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, ...

score of 67, based on six reviews. Robin Murray from the '' Clash'' wrote: "It's a mark of the clear respect and friendship between Lil Baby and Lil Durk, then, that 'The Voice Of The Heroes' develops a coherent voice, with the two working towards a common goal. Sure, it's not perfect - at 18 tracks it could do with some trimming". Writing for ''

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

'', Fred Thomas stated that "The nearly hour-long running time drags somewhat, and some songs could have been left off the final cut. Still, The Voice of the Heroes is carried primarily by Durk and Baby's chemistry as they adapt to each other without either of them watering down their individualistic styles".

Commercial performance

On June 5, 2021, the album received early first-week sales projections from music industry forecasters of 165,000 to 185,000 units. ''The Voice of the Heroes'' debuted at number one on the US ''Billboard'' 200 chart, earning 150,000

album-equivalent unit The album-equivalent unit, or album equivalent, is a measurement unit in music industry to define the consumption of music that equals the purchase of one album copy. This consumption includes streaming and song downloads in addition to traditi ...

s (including 4,000 copies in pure album sales) in its first week, according to

MRC Data Luminate (formerly Nielsen SoundScan, Nielsen Music Products, and MRC Data) is a provider of music sales data. Established by Mike Fine and Mike Shalett in 1991, data is collected weekly and made available every Sunday (for albums sales) and eve ...

. This became Lil Baby's second and Lil Durk's first US number one album on the chart. The album also accumulated a total of 197.71 million on-demand streams of the album’s songs. In addition, a total of 16 songs from the album managed to chart on the US ''Billboard'' Hot 100, led by "Hats Off" (with Travis Scott) and "Voice of the Heroes" that peaked at numbers 16 and 21 respectively. In its second week, the album dropped to number four on chart, earning an additional 73,000 units. In its third week, the album climbed to number three on the chart, earning 57,000 more units. In its fourth week, the album dropped to number four on the chart, earning 52,000 units, bringing its four-week total to 332,000 units.

Track listing

Charts

Weekly charts

Year-end charts

Certifications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Voice of the Heroes 2021 albums Lil Baby albums Lil Durk albums Collaborative albums Albums produced by Murda Beatz Albums produced by London on da Track Albums produced by Wheezy Motown albums Quality Control Music albums