I asked Lil Baby, tucked into a bright yellow hoodie, if he found that logic convincing.

“I ain’t going to lie — I be like 15 percent knowing,” he said. “Some days I get frustrated.” But he knows the stakes. “I’ve been through all the bad parts of the streets. I’ve been to prison — 17 years old, level-five prison, the worst kind you can go to. Shootouts — I done watched my bros die. I’ve been through all that. I ain’t never had nothing good in life.”

With some success in music, though, he’s seen a glimmer of long-term hope. “It sounds like, ‘O.K., duh, go do that.’ But it’s hard to transition. I’ve been rapping for six months, but I’ve been in the streets heavy for like 12 years straight.” He pulled out his phone and scrolled through the missed calls — old friends luring him back.

“I’m transforming,” he went on, as if convincing himself. And yet, “right now, I’d rather be in the hood.” Prison, he said, helped some with those impulses. “I’m starting to build this patience. God’s got something else for me. I need to be with Pee, because ain’t no telling what’s going on in the hood right now, what I could be going into. I look at Pee as a savior.

“Twelve” — the police — “could be about to hit my little spot right now,” Lil Baby said. “And if I’m at Magic with Pee? I’m gonna be so happy.”