lil yachty album let's start here

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Let’s Start Here.

Quality Control / Motown

February 1, 2023

At a surprise listening event last Thursday,  Lil Yachty   introduced his new album  Let’s Start Here. , an unexpected pivot, with a few words every rap fan will find familiar: “I really wanted to be taken seriously as an artist, not just some SoundCloud rapper or some mumble rapper.” This is the speech rappers are obligated to give when it comes time for the drum loop to take a backseat to guitars, for the rapping to be muted in favor of singing, for the ad-libs to give it up to the background singers, and for a brigade of white producers with plaque-lined walls to be invited into the fold. 

Rap fans, including myself, don’t want to hear it, but the reality is that in large slices of music and pop culture, “rapper” is thrown around with salt on the tongue. Pop culture is powerfully influenced by hip-hop, that is until the rappers get too close and the hands reach for the pearls. If anything, the 25-year-old Yachty—as one of the few rappers of his generation able to walk through the front door anyway because of his typically Gushers-sweet sound and innocently youthful beaded braid look—might be the wrong messenger. 

What’s sour about Yachty’s statement isn’t the idea that he wants to be taken seriously as an artist, but the question of  who  he wants to be taken seriously by. When Yachty first got on, a certain corner of rap fandom saw his marble-mouthed enunciation and unwillingness to drool over hip-hop history as symbols of what was ruining the genre they claimed to love. A few artists more beholden to tradition did some finger-wagging— Pete Rock and  Joe Budden ,  Vic Mensa and  Anderson .Paak , subliminals from  Kendrick and  Cole —but that was years ago, and by now they’ve found new targets. These days, Yachty is respected just fine within rap. If he weren’t, his year-long rebirth in the Michigan rap scene, which resulted in the good-not-great  Michigan Boy Boat , would have been viewed solely as a cynical attempt to boost his rap bona fides. His immersion there felt earnest, though, like he was proving to himself that he could hang. 

The respect Yachty is chasing on  Let’s Start Here. feels institutional. It’s for the voting committees, for the suits; for  Questlove to shout him out as  the future , for Ebro to invite him  back on his radio show and say  My bad, you’re dope.  Never mind if you thought Lil Yachty was dope to start with: The goal of this album is to go beyond all expectations and rules for rappers.

And the big pivot is… a highly manicured and expensive blend of  Tame Impala -style psych-rock, A24 synth-pop, loungey R&B, and  Silk Sonic -esque funk, a sound so immediately appealing that it doesn’t feel experimental at all. In 2020, Yachty’s generational peers,  Lil Uzi Vert and  Playboi Carti , released  Eternal Atake and  Whole Lotta Red : albums that pushed forward pre-existing sounds to the point of inimitability, showcases not only for the artists’ raps but their conceptual visions. Yachty, meanwhile, is working within a template that is already well-defined and commercially successful. This is what the monologue was for? 

To Yachty’s credit, he gives the standout performance on a crowded project. It’s the same gift for versatility that’s made him a singular rapper: He bounces from style to style without losing his individuality. A less interesting artist would have been made anonymous by the polished sounds of producers like  Chairlift ’s Patrick Wimberly,  Unknown Mortal Orchestra ’s Jacob Portrait, and pop songwriters Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, or had their voice warped by writing credits that bring together  Mac DeMarco ,  Alex G , and, uh,  Tory Lanez . The production always leans more indulgent than thrilling, more scattershot than conceptual. But Yachty himself hangs onto the ideas he’s been struggling to articulate since 2017’s  Teenage Emotions : loneliness, heartbreak, overcoming failure. He’s still not a strong enough writer to nail them, and none of the professionals collecting checks in the credits seem to have been much help, but his immensely expressive vocals make up for it. 

Actually, for all the commotion about the genre jump on this project, the real draw is the ways in which Yachty uses Auto-Tune and other vocal effects as tools to unlock not just sounds but emotion. Building off the vocal wrinkle introduced on last year’s viral moment “ Poland ,” where he sounds like he’s cooing through a ceiling fan, the highlights on  Let’s Start Here. stretch his voice in unusual directions. The vocals in the background of his wistful hook on “pRETTy” sound like he’s trying to harmonize while getting a deep-tissue massage. His shrill melodies on “paint THE sky” could have grooved with  the Weeknd on  Dawn FM . The opening warble of “running out of time” is like Yachty’s imitation of  Bruno Mars imitating  James Brown , and the way he can’t quite restrain his screechiness enough to flawlessly copy it is what makes it original.

Too bad everything surrounding his unpredictable and adventurous vocal detours is so conventional. Instrumental moments that feel like they’re supposed to be weird and psychedelic—the hard rock guitar riff that coasts to a blissful finale in “the BLACK seminole.” or the slow build of “REACH THE SUNSHINE.”—come off like half-measures.  Diana Gordon ’s falsetto-led funk on “drive ME crazy!” reaches for a superhuman register, but other guest appearances, like  Fousheé ’s clipped lilts on “pRETTy” and  Daniel Caesar ’s faded howls on the outro, are forgettable. None of it is ever  bad : The synths on “sAy sOMETHINg” shimmer; the drawn-out intro and outro of “WE SAW THE SUN!” set the lost, trippy mood they’re supposed to; “THE zone~” blooms over and over again, underlined by  Justine Skye ’s sweet and unhurried melodies. It’s all so easy to digest, so pitch-perfect, so safe.  Let’s Start Here. clearly and badly wants to be hanging up on those dorm room walls with  Currents and  Blonde and  IGOR . It might just work, too. 

Instead, consider this album a reminder of how limitless rap can be. We’re so eager for the future of the genre to arrive that current sounds are viewed as restricting and lesser. But rap is everything you can imagine. I’m thinking about “Poland,” a song stranger than anything here: straight-up 1:23 of chaos, as inventive as it is fun. I took that track as seriously as anything I heard last year because it latches onto a simple rap melody and pushes it to the brink. Soon enough, another rapper will hear that and take it in another direction, then another will do the same. That’s how you really get to the future. 

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How Lil Yachty Ended Up at His Excellent New Psychedelic Album Let's Start Here

The evening before Lil Yachty released his fifth studio album,  Let’s Start Here,  he  gathered an IMAX theater’s worth of his fans and famous friends at the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City and made something clear: He wanted to be taken seriously. Not just as a “Soundcloud rapper, not some mumble rapper, not some guy that just made one hit,” he told the crowd before pressing play on his album. “I wanted to be taken serious because music is everything to me.” 

There’s a spotty history of rappers making dramatic stylistic pivots, a history Yachty now joins with  Let’s Start Here,  a funk-flecked psychedelic rock album. But unlike other notable rap-to-rock faceplants—Kid Cudi’s  Speedin’ Bullet 2 Heaven  comes to mind, as does Lil Wayne’s  Rebirth —the record avoids hackneyed pastiche and gratuitous playacting and cash-grabbing crossover singles; instead, Yachty sounds unbridled and free, a rapper creatively liberated from the strictures of mainstream hip-hop. Long an oddball who’s delighted in defying traditional rap ethos and expectations,  Let’s Start Here  is a maximalist and multi-genre undertaking that rewrites the narrative of Yachty’s curious career trajectory. 

Admittedly, it’d be easy to write off the album as Tame Impala karaoke, a gimmicky record from a guy who heard Yves Tumor once and thought: Let’s do  that . But set aside your Yachty skepticism and probe the album’s surface a touch deeper. While the arrangements tend toward the obvious, the record remains an intricate, unraveling swell of sumptuous live instruments and reverb-drenched textures made more impressive by the fact that Yachty co-produced every song. Fielding support from an all-star cast of characters, including production work from former Chairlift member Patrick Wimberly, Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait, Justin Raisen, Nick Hakim, and Magdalena Bay, and vocals from Daniel Caesar, Diana Gordon,  Foushée , Justine Skye, and Teezo Touchdown, Yachty surrounds himself with a group of disparately talented collaborators. You can hear the acute attention to detail and wide-scale ambition in the spaced-out denouement on “We Saw the Sun!” or on the blistering terror of “I’ve Officially Lost Vision!!!!” or during the cool romanticism of “Say Something.” Though occasionally overindulgent,  Let’s Start Here  is a spectacular statement from hip-hop’s prevailing weirdo. It’s not shocking that Yachty took another hard left—but how exactly did he end up  here ?

In 2016, as the forefather of “bubblegum trap” ascended into mainstream consciousness, an achievement like  Let’s Start Here  would’ve seemed inconceivable. The then 18-year-old Yachty gained national attention when a pair of his songs, “One Night” and “Minnesota,” went viral. Though clearly indebted to hip-hop trailblazers Lil B, Chief Keef, and Young Thug, his work instantly stood apart from the gritted-teeth toughness of his Atlanta trap contemporaries. Yachty flaunted a childlike awe and cartoonish demeanor that communicated a swaggering, unbothered cool. His singsong flows and campy melodies contained a winking humor to them, a subversive playfulness that endeared him to a generation of very online kids who saw themselves in Yachty’s goofy, eccentric persona. He starred in Sprite  commercials alongside LeBron James, performed live shows at the  Museum of Modern Art , and modeled in Kanye West’s  Life of Pablo  listening event at Madison Square Garden. Relishing in his cultural influence, he declared to the  New York Times  that he was not a rapper but an  artist. “And I’m more than an artist,” he added. “I’m a brand.”

 As Sheldon Pearce pointed out in his Pitchfork  review of Yachty’s 2016 mixtape,  Lil Boat , “There isn’t a single thing Lil Yachty’s doing that someone else isn’t doing better, and in richer details.” He wasn’t wrong. While Yachty’s songs were charming and catchy (and, sometimes, convincing), his music was often tangential to his brand. What was the point of rapping as sharply as the Migos or singing as intensely as Trippie Redd when you’d inked deals with Nautica and Target, possessed a sixth-sense for going viral, and had incoming collaborations with Katy Perry and Carly Rae Jepsen? What mattered more was his presentation: the candy-red hair and beaded braids, the spectacular smile that showed rows of rainbow-bedazzled grills, the wobbly, weak falsetto that defaulted to a chintzy nursery rhyme cadence. He didn’t need technical ability or historical reverence to become a celebrity; he was a meme brought to life, the personification of hip-hop’s growing generational divide, a sudden star who, like so many other Soundcloud acts, seemed destined to crash and burn after a fleeting moment in the sun.

 One problem: the music wasn’t very good. Yachty’s debut album, 2017’s  Teenage Emotions, was a glitter-bomb of pop-rap explorations that floundered with shaky hooks and schmaltzy swings at crossover hits. Worse, his novelty began to fade, those sparkly, cheerful, and puerile bubblegum trap songs aging like day-old french fries. Even when he hued closer to hard-nosed rap on 2018’s  Lil Boat 2  and  Nuthin’ 2 Prove,  you could feel Yachty desperate to recapture the magic that once came so easily to him. But rap years are like dog years, and by 2020, Yachty no longer seemed so radically weird. He was an established rapper making mid mainstream rap. The only question now was whether we’d already seen the best of him.

If his next moves were any indication—writing the  theme song to the  Saved by the Bell  sitcom revival and announcing his involvement in an upcoming  movie based on the card game Uno—then the answer was yes. But in April 2021, Yachty dropped  Michigan Boat Boy,  a mixtape that saw him swapping conventional trap for Detroit and Flint’s fast-paced beats and plain-spoken flows. Never fully of a piece with his Atlanta colleagues, Yachty found a cohort of kindred spirits in Michigan, a troop of rappers whose humor, imagination, and debauchery matched his own. From the  looks of it, leaders in the scene like Babyface Ray, Rio Da Yung OG, and YN Jay embraced Yachty with open arms, and  Michigan Boat Boy  thrives off that communion. 

 Then “ Poland ” happened. When Yachty uploaded the minute-and-a-half long track to Soundcloud a few months back, he received an unlikely and much needed jolt. Building off the rage rap production he played with on the  Birthday Mix 6  EP, “Poland” finds Yachty’s warbling about carrying pharmaceutical-grade cough syrup across international borders, a conceit that captured the imagination of TikTok and beyond. Recorded as a joke and released only after a leaked version went viral, the song has since amassed over a hundred-millions streams across all platforms. With his co-production flourishes (and adlibs) splattered across Drake and 21 Savage’s  Her Loss,  fans had reason to believe that Yachty’s creative potential had finally clicked into focus.

 But  Let’s Start Here  sounds nothing like “Poland”—in fact, the song doesn’t even appear on the project. Instead, amid a tapestry of scabrous guitars, searing bass, and vibrant drums, Yachty sounds right at home on this psych-rock spectacle of an album. He rarely raps, but his singing often relies on the virtues of his rapping: those greased-vowel deliveries and unrushed cadences, the autotune-sheathed vibrato. “Pretty,” for instance, is decidedly  not  a rap song—but what is it, then? It’s indebted to trap as much as it is ’90s R&B and MGMT, its drugged-out drums and warm keys able to house an indeterminate amount of ideas.

Yachty didn’t need to abandon hip-hop to find himself as an artist, but his experimental impulses helped him craft his first great album. Perhaps this is his lone dalliance in psych rock—maybe a return to trap is imminent. Or, maybe, he’ll make another 180, or venture deeper into the dystopia of corporate sponsorships. Who’s to say? For now, it’s invigorating to see Yachty shake loose the baggage of his teenage virality and emerge more fully into his adult artistic identity. His guise as a boundary-pushing rockstar isn’t a new archetype, but it’s an archetype he’s infused with his glittery idiosyncrasies. And look what he’s done: he’s once again morphed into a star the world didn’t see coming.

Let’s Start Here.

January 27, 2023 14 Songs, 57 minutes Quality Control Music/Motown Records; ℗ 2023 Quality Control Music, LLC, under exclusive license to UMG Recordings, Inc.

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Lil Yachty’s Great Gig in the Sky

Since the release of his Lil Boat mixtape in 2016, Lil Yachty has cultivated a peculiar rap career that has benefited from versatile musical interests. The Atlanta rapper, singer, and producer’s early work juggled booming southern trap drums, gauzy synths, unclearable samples , and melodic sensibilities on loan from children’s television. Shifting listlessly between disaffected snark and sweet repose, the best songs answered the question of what Brian Wilson’s teenage symphonies might’ve sounded like if he’d grown up hanging around the Migos. On future projects, Yachty leaned into the gruff anthems of his labelmates on Atlanta’s Quality Control Music, toughening up on 2018’s Lil Boat 2 in some of the ways Drake did on Scorpion the same year, this after dividing critics and listeners with the synthpop and reggae excursions on Yachty’s 2017 debut studio album Teenage Emotions .

Restlessness saves his catalog from the pedestrian work of peers chasing the sound of a beloved early mixtape. Lil Yachty is always up to something , quietly penning an undisclosed piece of the City Girls smash “Act Up,” or producing a chunk of Drake and 21 Savage’s Her Loss , or logging an unlikely chart hit about sneaking promethazine through customs . He’s a lightning rod for guys who see a new wave of absurdists and crooners as a displacement of rap traditionalism (rather than a continuation of a detailed history within it); he knows what the fans are into and where they’re getting into it online, so accusations about his music ruining hip-hop are complicated by every unforeseen success. The work varies greatly in style as well as quality, but being difficult to pin down also buys him freedom to make unusual plays.

Let’s Start Here , his fifth album and first full-length excursion into psychedelic rock, didn’t spawn entirely from nowhere, and not just because it sprung a leak under the name Sonic Beach a few weeks back. His appearance on a remix for Tame Impala’s Slow Rush jam “Breathe Deeper” hits a few of the markers the new album visits: the taste for psychotropic drugs and the interaction between the shimmering sound achieved by an elaborate pedal board and raps that feel both lightly thought through and also spirited and spontaneous. The first song, “The Black Seminole,” outlines the project’s guiding ethos, from its burbling, delay-drenched analog-synthesizer sound to the trippy changes and show-stopping vocal performance by “Bad Habit” co-writer Diana Gordon — all of which amount to an attempt to jam every idea housed in Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon into a single seven-minute performance. Bolstered by memorable spots from Gordon (who gives the Clare Torry screams in “Failure” and “Seminole” her all), Fousheé (whose softCORE album served rockers like “Die” and “Bored” that share Yachty’s love of walls of noise), and Justine Skye, the new album makes more space for women in its love songs than most rappers percolating on the charts tend to care to now. (Note also the presence of one Daystar Peterson in the credits as a co-writer on “Paint the Sky.”)

Let’s Start Here journeys back in time and out to space and sometimes up its own ass. It’s a drug odyssey that delightfully defies expectations whenever it’s not overindulging, taking its adulation for its influences from pastiche to parody, pushing its sound from psych to cacophony. Much will be made of Kevin Parker’s impact here, because Tame is also a project about savvily jumbling ideas from other eras and getting synthesizers to feel as delicately enveloping as puffs of smoke. It’s also an oversimplification of the scope of Let’s Start Here to call it Lil Yachty’s Tame album. Patrick Wimberly co-produced every song, and the snap of the drum sound and the flair for gooey horn accompaniment are assets Chairlift — Wimberly’s former group with Caroline Polachek and Aaron Pfenning — used to employ. U.K. producer Jam City and Yves Tumor collaborator Justin Raisen sat in on a lot of these, too; the maximalist sonics and the mix of love songs and acid-addled horror here are both a result of its pick of personnel and an authentic re-creation of the wild fluctuations of a lurid trip.

Its intriguing bio- and band chemistry are Let’s Start Here ’s gift and curse. “Running Out of Time” kicks off with drums that feel like Thundercat’s “Them Changes” (which, in turn, feels like Paul McCartney’s “Arrow Through Me”) and a bubbly bass line evoking “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers. Pushing through to a gorgeous bridge, matching vocals with Skye, Yachty pokes out from under the shadow of his forebears and delivers one of the finest bits of music he’s ever made. The blissed out “The Ride” plants the Texas rapper Teezo Touchdown into a wobbly groove that could’ve fit into last year’s Yeah Yeah Yeahs album. It feels like both songs could collapse at any moment, hanging a sharp turn into an unflattering section wrecking the momentum they built. Equally prone to swift tense shifts and long detours, Let’s Start Here meanders a great deal between highlights, raining sheets of sound that soak and weigh down the delicate grooves it’s trying to build. “Paint the Sky” sounds like a radio hit dropped into a flooded pit cave. These songs sink or swim on Lil Yachty’s ability to steady himself amid a maelstrom of phase-shifted guitars, delay-kissed drums, and synths shrouded in reverb. He’s a good study and a great hook man, but the novelty of some of his experiments wear off as ideas repeat and choruses get smothered. The less they tinker, the better.

Restraint guides Let’s Start Here to a few of its most sublime moments. “Pretty” will draw comparisons to Childish Gambino’s Awaken My Love! and the hit slow jam “Redbone,” but the drum programming recalls the stuff Prince did with the LinnDrum and the vocal performances feel inspired by cloud rap, a sensibility teased out in a cocky, carefree verse by Fousheé . “Say Something” strikes gold coolly poking around the pillowy synth pads and echoing drums of ’80s pop in the same way recent albums from the Weeknd picked up where Daft Punk left off in marrying dueling interests in 20th- and 21st-century popular music. “Pretty” and “Say Something” keep things relatively simple, stacking a few complementary ideas on top of each other and allowing space to breathe. (Other producers might abuse the clav hits in the latter for the old-school feel they bring, but this group lets them drift in and out of frame, recalling the minimalist trap lullabies on the back end of Lil Boat .) The noisier and less structurally sturdy cuts that surround them feel like the jams a band works through on the way to more refined compositions, before taking them on the road where they grow new layers of sound and significance. Let’s Start Here begs to be untangled in a live setting the way artists drawn to the tactile and communal experience of music tend to, allowed to drift over warm air, playing during the sunny days and reckless nights it describes.

Maybe this album is the new beginning its title implies, a first step toward tighter songcraft on the horizon, and maybe Yachty will pop back up in six to 18 months’ time on some different shit entirely, as is often his tendency. The new record finds him sniffing around the same intersections of pop, rock, psych, and soul as “Bad Habit” or Frank Ocean’s “Pretty Sweet,” sacrificing the brevity of his hits for a purposeful sensory overload, which sometimes works in his favor but sometimes encumbers tracks that ought to seem weightless. It is important for young artists to get the space to grow and change and eat mushrooms and make weird but enthusiastic indie-rock music.

Let’s Start Here fits into a long tradition of pleasant curveballs from rappers, unheralded classics like Q-Tip’s Kamaal the Abstract, side projects like the Beastie Boys and Suicidal Tendencies offshoot BS2000 , imperfect genre excursions like Kid Cudi’s WZRD , and effortless R&B pivots like Tyler, the Creator’s Igor . Yachty is stumbling down well-trod pathways, learning lessons imparted on generation after generation of listeners ever since Pink Floyd’s international breakthrough 50 years ago and taking metaphysical journeys endeavored since humans first discovered fungi and plants that made them see sounds and smell colors. The sharpest songs here could go toe-to-toe with the best in the artist’s back catalog, and the worst ones sound like excitable demos for various guitar pedals. Let’s Start Here isn’t Lil Yachty’s greatest work, but it goes over better than the pitch — “Poland” guy does shrooms and jams on instruments — implied it might. And if shoegaze-adjacent rockers like “I’ve Officially Lost Vision” and sound experiments like the one at the end of “We Saw the Sun” drone-pill even a fraction of the audience, it was all worth it.

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Lil Yachty 'Let's Start Here' Is A Bold Departure That May Leave Some Fans Adrift

• 1.5 Community Rating
• 8 Rated the Album
• 1 Gave it a 5/5

If Lil Wanye’s Rebirth is the prototype for rappers-turned-rockstars, then Lil Yachty’ s endeavor into psychedelic rock with Let’s Start Here is a logical evolution. Leaving his bubblegum trap origins in the rearview, Lil Yachty recounts all that he discovered on an introspective journey into the untapped elements of his artistry.

As the title suggests, the Atlanta rapper’s career divides into two periods – before Let’s Start Here , and after. Aimed to be a new beginning for Yachty – a man who as a child was blamed for “killing” Hip Hop, his most recent LP features a moderate shift in style from impassioned rap to the howling vibrato of a modern psychedelic sound. It would be disingenuous to say this is a massive shift, as the despised Teenage Emotions also featured elements of alternative rock and psychedelia. However, instead of letting his team confuse Squidward’s clarinet for a cello, Yachty has learned from his mistakes and recruited some of indie music’s greatest. Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s Jacob Portrait, Justin Raisen, Magdalena Bay, and Patrick Wimberly of the disbanded duo Chairlift received various credits for production; while Mac Demarco, Nick Hakim, Alex G, and MGMT’s Ben Goldwasser all scored recognition as lyricists.

Cracked open by a languid breakdown of percussion,“the BLACK seminole” offers an immediate change of pace from his previous work. “No time to joke around, the kid is now a man / And the sadness is filled with remarkable sounds,” he croons throatily.

Featuring Teezo Touchdown, “the ride-” reflects on Yachty’s course in Hip Hop. Where “the BLACK seminole.” likens him to an industry outcast – a chip he tethers to his shoulder, “the ride-” sees Yachty pleading for respect from the same people who quickly ostracized him. Let’s Start Here. is desperate to exalt the rapper from the categorization of Hip Hop as it once confined him; the truth is that as “groundbreaking” as Yachty continues to say this album is, such a sentiment also ignores rap’s present affinity for transformation – for breaking and bending itself to redefine that which it can be. In 2023, Yachty is not the first person to take a stylistic turn into left field.

But, it sounds good, and that’s the most important thing – allowing Yachty to dabble in a fresh palette of songs that he’s hinted at, encouraging him to take the risk that predated this release. “Drive Me Crazy,” “Say Something,” and “Pretty” showcase a softer, more romantic side of Lil Yachty. “I feel so pretty,” he warbles dreamily, expressing himself with a cathartic transparency that is worlds away from the pent-up frustrations of “Go Krazy, Go Stupid Freestyle” or “YAE ENERGY.” Engaging with suicidal thoughts, experiences of anti-blackness, and heartbreak, Let’s Start Here. projects Yachty’s inner monologue out into the world.

With respect to his long-standing career as a rapper, Lil Yachty’s latest release comes across as few and far between; but, when placed in company with the works of other indie artists – like Tame Impala, Magdalena Bay, Yves Tumor and others, Let’s Start Here. falls short of what most listeners have come to expect from psychedelic rock and indie pop. The most obvious downfall of the project is the use of repetitive loops where breakdowns or solos should exist. The rugged guitar riff of “IVE OFFICIALLY LOST VISION!!!!” picks up intensity and then leads to nowhere, fizzling out from the lack of emphatic contrast between the build and the drop. The same disappointment applies to the seemingly promising crescendo of “The Alchemist.” Titled as so, it would be fair to expect this particular track to be the one where Yachty puts it all out there – where he turns his existing discography into gold. And yet, the kick drum that pounds like a racing heartbeat does not lead into something grander, rather it disseminates with the soft vocals of Fousheé.

Let’s Start Here. is exciting at the first listen because the style is new to Lil Yachty himself. Alas, the shiny sheen of new experiences tends to dull over time and with repetition. After a few plays through, there is little left to be discovered; this proves to be a problem for Yachty, particularly when he proudly pins the album as psychedelic rock. Unlike with the ephemerality of Let’s Start Here , Tame Impala’s Currents possesses the sonic and thematic layers to maintain an element of discovery even years after its release. The beauty of the whining reverb in “We Saw the Sun” is undeniable; but when the listener attempts to move beyond the surface, Yachty’s rendition of the classic instrumental inter-play of psychotropic rock unravels as if pulled from a string.

If contextualized by the tried and true characteristics of alternative rock, Let’s Start Here. seems inspired by Yves Tumor or any one of his esteemed indie collaborators, but it cannot stand independently against them or the test of time; Yachty’s rock debut is unique mostly in the sense that it reveals an alternative aspect of his artistry, a departure from Michigan Boy Boat , the Lil Boat series and is his massive warbling smash “Poland.” In regards to what it offers for the future of psychedelic rock, the LP treads above the already-existing footprints of Currents and Tumor’s Heaven To A Tortured Mind .

Still, the record allows for the progression of the perception around Yachty’s career as a musician. Much like Rihanna with ANTI , Let’s Start Here. places Lil Yachty in a position to be considered for his versatility and artistic merit. A career shift into psychedelic rock is more than a stylistic choice; it is a decision to attempt an alternation of the listener’s mind. When understood in terms of creative growth, Yachty earns success, adjusting the preconceived notions that surrounded him. But much like Harry Styles, Yachty’s pastiche is not anything new, and it doesn’t have to be.

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Music Features

Lil yachty's delightfully absurd path to 'let's start here'.

Matthew Ramirez

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 29: Lil Yachty performs on the Stage during day 2 of Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival 2017 at Exposition Park on October 29, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Rich Fury/Getty Images hide caption

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 29: Lil Yachty performs on the Stage during day 2 of Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival 2017 at Exposition Park on October 29, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Lil Yachty often worked better as an idea than a rapper. The late-decade morass of grifters like Lil Pump, amidst the self-serious reign of Future and Drake (eventual Yachty collaborators, for what it's worth), created a demand for something lighter, someone charismatic, a throwback to a time in the culture when characters like Biz Markie could score a hit or Kool Keith could sustain a career in one hyper-specific lane of rap fandom. Yachty fulfilled the role: His introduction to many was through a comedy skit soundtracked by his viral breakout "1 Night," which tapped into the song's deadpan delivery and was the perfect complement for its sleepy charm. The casual fan knows him best for a pair of collaborations in 2016: as one-half of the zeitgeist-defining single "Broccoli" with oddity D.R.A.M., or "iSpy," a top-five pop hit with backpack rapper Kyle. Yachty embodied the rapper as larger-than-life character — from his candy-colored braids to his winning smile — and while the songs themselves were interesting, you could be forgiven for wondering if there was anything substantial behind the fun, the grounds for the start of a long career.

As if to supplement his résumé, Yachty seemed to emerge as a multimedia star. Perhaps you remember him in a Target commercial; heard him during the credits for the Saved by the Bell reboot; spotted him on a cereal box; saw him co-starring in the ill-fated 2019 sequel to How High . TikTok microcelebrity followed. Then the sentences got more and more absurd: Chef Boyardee jingle with Donny Osmond; nine-minute video cosplaying as Oprah; lead actor in an UNO card game movie. Somewhere in a cross-section of pop-culture detritus and genuine hit-making talent is where Yachty resides. That he didn't fade away immediately is a testament to his charm as a cultural figure; Yachty satisfied a need, and in his refreshingly low-stakes appeal, you could imagine him as an MTV star in an alternate universe. Move the yardstick of cultural cachet from album sales to likes and he emerges as a generation-defining persona, if not musician.

Early success and exposure can threaten anyone's career, none so much as those connected to the precarious phenomenon of SoundCloud rap. Yachty's initial peak perhaps seeded his desire years later to sincerely pursue artistry with Let's Start Here , an album fit for his peculiar trajectory, because throughout the checks from Sprite and scolding Ebro interviews he never stopped releasing music, seemingly to satisfy no one other than himself and the generation of misfits that he seemed to be speaking for.

But to oversell him as a personality belittles his substantial catalog. Early mixtapes like Lil Boat and Summer Songs 2 , which prophetically brought rap tropes and pop sounds into harmony, were sustained by the teenage artist's commitment to selling the vibe of a track as he warbled its memorable hook. It was perhaps his insistence to demonstrate that he could rap, too, that most consistently pockmarked his output during this period. These misses were the necessary growing pains of a kid still finding his footing, and through time and persistence, a perceived weakness became a strength. Where his peers Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti found new ways to express themselves in music, Yachty dug in his heels and became Quality Control's oddball representative, acquitting himself on guest appearances and graduating from punchline rapper to respectable vet culminating in the dense and rewarding Lil Boat 3 from 2020, Yachty's last official album.

Which is why the buzzy, viral "Poland" from the end of 2022 hit different — Yachty tapped back into the same lively tenor of his early breakthroughs. The vibrato was on ten, the beat menaced and hummed like a broken heater, he rapped about taking cough syrup in Poland, it was over in under two minutes and endlessly replayable. Yachty has already lived a full career arc in seven years — from the 2016 king of the teens, to budding superstar, to pitchman, to regional ambassador. But following "Poland" with self-aware attempts at similar virality would be a mistake, and you can't pivot your way to radio stardom after a hit like that, unless you're a marketing genius like Lil Nas X. How does he follow up his improbable second chance to grab the zeitgeist?

#NowPlaying

Lil yachty, 'poland'.

Let's Start Here is Lil Yachty's reinvention, a born-again Artist's Statement with no rapping. It's billed as psychedelic rock but has a decidedly accessible sound — the sun-kissed warmth of an agreeable Tame Impala song, with bounce-house rhythms and woozy guitars in the mode of Magdalena Bay and Mac DeMarco (both of whom guest on the album) — something that's not quite challenging but satisfying nonetheless. Contrast with 2021's Michigan Boy Boat , where Yachty performed as tour guide through Michigan rap: His presence was auxiliary by function on that tape, as he ceded the floor to Babyface Ray, Sada Baby and Rio Da Yung OG; it was tantalizing curation, if not a work of his own personal artistry. It's tempting to cast Let's Start Here as another act of roleplay, but what holds this album together is Yachty's magnetic pull. Whether or not you're someone who voluntarily listens to the Urban Outfitters-approved slate of artists he's drawing upon, his star presence is what keeps you engaged here.

Yachty has been in the studio recording this album since 2021, and the effort is tangible. He didn't chase "Poland" with more goofy novelties, but he also didn't spit this record out in a month. Opener (and highlight) "The Black Seminole" alternates between Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix-lite references. It's definitely a gauntlet thrown even if halfway through you start to wonder where Yachty is. The album's production team mostly consists of Patrick Wemberly (formerly of Chairlift), Jacob Portrait (of Unknown Mortal Orchestra), Jeremiah Raisen (who's produced for Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira and Drake) and Yachty himself, who's established himself as a talented producer since his early days. (MGMT's Ben Goldwasser also contributed.) The group does a formidable job composing music that is dense and layered enough to register as formally unconventional, if not exactly boundary-pushing. Yachty frequently reaches for his "Poland"-inspired uber-vibrato, which adds a bewitching texture to the songs, placing him in the center of the track. Other moments that work: the spoken-word interlude "Failure," thanks to contemplative strumming from Alex G, and "The Ride," a warm slow-burn that coasts on a Jam City beat, giving the album a lustrous Night Slugs moment. "I've Officially Lost Vision" thrashes like Yves Tumor.

Yet the best songs on Let's Start Here push Yachty's knack for hooks and snaking melodies to the fore and rely less on studio fireworks — the laid-back groove of "Running Out of Time," the mournful post-punk of "Should I B?" and the slow burn of "Pretty," which features a bombastic turn from vocalist Foushee. That Yachty's vaunted indie collaborators were able to work in simpatico with him proves his left-of-center bonafides. It's a reminder that he's often lined his projects with successful non-rap songs, curios like "Love Me Forever" from Lil Boat 2 and "Worth It" from Nuthin' 2 Prove . That renders Let's Start Here a less startling turn than it may appear at first glance, and also underlines his recurring talent for making off-kilter pop music, a gift no matter the perceived genre.

At a listening event for the record, Yachty stated: "I created [this] because I really wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. Not just some SoundCloud rapper, not some mumble rapper. Not some guy that just made one hit," seemingly aware of the culture war within his own genre and his place along the spectrum of low- to highbrow. To be sure, whether conscious of it or not, this kind of mentality is dismissive of rap music as an artform, and also undermines the good music Yachty has made in the past. Holing up in the studio to make digestibly "weird" indie-rock with a cast of talented white people isn't intrinsically more artistic or valid than viral hits or a one-off like "Poland." But this statement scans less as self-loathing and more as a renewed confidence, a tribute to the album's collective vision. And people like Joe Budden have been saying "I don't think Yachty is hip-hop " since he started. So what if he wants to break rank now?

Lil Yachty entered the cultural stage at 18, and has grown up in public. It adds up that, now 25, he would internalize all the scrutiny he's received and wish to cement his artistry after a few thankless years rewriting the rules for young, emerging rappers. Let's Start Here may not be the transcendent psychedelic rock album that he seeks, but it is reflective of an era of genreless "vibes" music. Many young listeners likely embraced Yachty and Tame Impala simultaneously; it tracks he would want to bring these sounds together in a genuine attempt to reach a wider audience. Nothing about this album is cynical, but it is opportunistic, a creation in line with both a shameless mixed-media existence and his everchanging pop alchemy. The "genre" tag in streaming metadata means less than it ever has. Credit to Yachty for putting that knowledge to use.

Lil Yachty on His Rock Album ‘Let’s Start Here,’ Rapping With J. Cole, and What’s Next

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Nowhere in the rap star manual does it say that a guaranteed formula for success is to “make psychedelic rock album with almost no rapping.” Yet that is exactly what Lil Yachty did with “Let’s Start Here,” his fifth full album but first rock project, after years as a top rapper with hits like “One Night,” “Minnesota,” “Oprah’s Bank Account” and guest spots on Kyle’s smash “iSpy,” Dram’s “Broccoli,” Calvin Harris’ “Faking It” and others.

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Are these the first dates you’re playing behind this new album?

At the album listening session, people did not seem to know what to think.

No! I didn’t know what people would expect, but I knew they wouldn’t expect that. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been more confident with a body of work, so my chest was out. I didn’t think anyone would be like, “Oh, this sucks.” I genuinely felt like even if you didn’t like it, if you’re a music head, you’d have some kind of respect for the body of work itself, and for an artist to pivot and make something in such a complete, utter, opposite direction from what came before.

You said the people you played the album for included Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator — all of whom have made moves something like that in the past.

I’ll tell you, Tyler was a big reason for this album. He’ll call me at like eight o’clock in the morning — for no reason — and we’ll talk for hours. I was such a fan of [Tyler’s Grammy-winning 2019 album] “Igor,” his character and his way of creating a world — the color palettes, the videos, the billboards, the fonts. It’s all together. And I was like “How do you do that?” Because I was trying to figure out how to make a pop-funk-psychedelic-rock album cohesive, without it sounding like someone’s playlist. Then I started working on the visuals, and what I wanted to do was extremely expensive. To be quite honest, I don’t think my label believed in it enough to give me the budget that I truly needed for the visuals to bring this album to life, so I just made two videos.

Tyler and Drake both called me before my first show — I didn’t even tell them the show was happening but they both called me. That means something to me, because those people are my idols. I remember the day Kanye tweeted [Tyler’s 2011 single] “Yonkers,” I was in eighth grade. So them checking on me means a lot.

Is it a lonely feeling, sticking your neck out creatively like that?

Yeah, at first it was, but another thing Tyler taught me was not to be afraid of that. I was so scared before those first shows, like, “What if they don’t wanna hear it?” Tyler would always say, “Fuck it, make them feel you.”

Like, on the first show of this tour, I told the [sound crew], “Play psychedelic music before I go on, don’t play hip-hop” — but right before I went on they played a Playboi Carti song and I heard the crowd turning up and I was like, “Oh no, they’re gonna hate me!” And when I came out, I have in-ears [onstage monitors] and I have them set so you can’t really hear the crowd, it’s like dead silence. But I just kept going, and then my rap set comes and they go fucking crazy and that gives me confidence, and when I did the big rock outro on “Black Seminole,” they all started clapping. And for me it was the biggest “Oh, thank God,” because I couldn’t tell if they were fucking with it.

Is it exciting being in such a risky place creatively?

You were a teenager.

Exactly, But I still wanted respect, you know? I cared! My career was never solidified, I felt like folks were writing me off, so when I was making “Let’s Start Here,” I was at a point in my career where I did not have a hit rap record — it was like, “Man, this could really go left!” But I didn’t start thinking about that till I got deep into it. When I started, I was just like, “Man, I really love this stuff. Why don’t I hear anything like this now? No one makes psychedelic songs anymore.” I do psychedelics and I knew I wanted to make a psychedelic album. I love long songs, I love to just get deep into them — that’s why I love [Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic] “Dark Side of the Moon.”

I was on psychedelics when I first heard it and I would listen and just be like maaan. Like, bro, how can music make me feel like this? How can music make my brain just go to a new dimension? And how did you do that in 1973? I was like, can I do this? And obviously my answer was no. I mean, no offense, but how many rappers successfully made a rock album?

Almost none.

That’s what I’m saying. I think one of them was Kid Cudi’s rock album — I love it but a lot of people hated it. It’s not a full rock album, but it has a strong rock element to it.

Where did the rock influences come from, your parents?

My dad played a lot of Coldplay, a lot of Radiohead, John Mayer, Lenny Kravitz, a lot of John Coltrane, and I’m named after Miles Davis. My family loved James Brown, my dad loved Pharrell. He actually didn’t play Pink Floyd to me, but I’m glad I heard it as an adult.

I tried to make “Let’s Start Here” five years ago — “Lil Boat 2” was supposed to be “Let’s Start Here” with teenage emotions, but I was too young. I got too nervous to experiment on my rap record, and I didn’t have much experience or knowledge in alternative music. I met [“Let’s Start Again” collaborator] Jeremiah Raisan and tried again with the next album, but I chickened out and made another rap album. But when I had that conversation with Tyler, I was like “I’ve gotta do this, let me get that guy back.”

You had a hit with “Poland” — why isn’t it on the album?

That’s what I battled with, but at some point, you have to trust yourself. In the middle of making the album, “Poland” was a huge Internet hit and people were like, “You gotta put it on the album.” But I was like, it doesn’t fit! Just because it’s a hit record doesn’t mean it makes sense anywhere on this record. I was so focused on making my Black “Dark Side of the Moon.” And there is a small rap verse on the album, at the end of “Drive Me Crazy.”

You’ve said you recorded a hip-hop album after you finished “Let’s Start Here,” what’s it like?

What do you want to do next?

I get off tour around Christmas, and in January I’m starting a new album. I don’t know what it is yet, I don’t want to say “alternative.” I have rap album, but I just decided I’m gonna keep dropping songs [from it] until my next [non-rap] album is done.

Do you know who you want to work with on the next album?

So many people, obviously I want to do it on mostly with the band I made the record with, [writers/producers] Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, Jake Portrait and Patrick Wimberly. But I want to work with Donald Glover, I really want to work with Florence from Florence and the Machine. Sampha, Frank [Ocean], Buddy Ross, who worked with Frank. Chris Martin, Bon Iver, Solange, Mike Dean.

I’ve just been exploring, doing things that people wouldn’t expect. Even if I’m not the best at something, let’s just try, let’s explore, let’s create new things.

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Let's Start Here

• Record Label: Quality Control
• Release Date: Jan 27, 2023

Critic Reviews

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• Details & Credits

Generally favorable reviews - based on 9 Critic Reviews What's this?

Universal acclaim - based on 64 Ratings

• Summary: The fifth full-length studio release for rapper Lil Yachty is said to be a "psychedelic alternative album" that features guest appearances from Daniel Caesar, Fousheé, Diana Gordon, Justine Skye, and Teezo Touchdown.

• Genre(s): Rap , Southern Rap , Contemporary Rap
• More Details and Credits »
• Positive: 7 out of 9
• Mixed: 2 out of 9
• Negative: 0 out of 9
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Lil Yachty Ready to Get Going With New Album ‘Let’s Start Here’

By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

Lil Yachty appears ready to release his first new album in three years later this month. 

On social media Tuesday, Jan. 17, the rapper shared what was ostensibly the weird-as-hell cover art for his next LP — a surreal image of a group of besuited adults sporting some deranged smiles — along with the title and release date: Let’s Start Here out Jan. 27. 

Lil Yachty then cryptically added, “Chapter 2,” before thanking fans “for the patience.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by C.V T (@lilyachty)

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“I met Andrew from MGMT, and I’ve been talking to a bunch of people. I met Kevin Parker [of Tame Impala], I’ve been talking to him. It’s just inspiring,” he said. “I got a bunch of side projects I’m going to drop before my next album. But what I’m trying to do on my next album, I’m trying to really take it there sonically.”

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• Editor’s Choice

Lil Yachty - Let's Start Here.

Jan 31 Album Reviews The Needle Drop

Let’s Start Here ‘s appeal isn’t owed to the novelty of Yachty going psych rock. That he clearly did his homework and was inspired to put his own spin on these sounds is the impressive part.

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Lil Yachty Guides Listeners on a Trippy Journey with ‘Let’s Start Here’ Album: Stream It Now

Listen to 'Let's Start Here' here.

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Lil yachty announces new album ‘let’s start here’, trending on billboard.

In the week leading up to the album’s release, he unveiled a nearly two-minute skit titled “Department of Mental Tranquility,” which shows Yachty walking into the video’s namesake and responding to a receptionist’s pestering, miscellaneous questions in a sweltering waiting room replete with erratic people before the performer carefully enters into the white light.

Yachty released his last full-length album,  Lil Boat 3 , on May 29, 2020. The 19-track set, which included lead single “Oprah’s Bank Account” featuring  DaBaby  and Drake , launched at No. 14 on the Billboard 200 . 

Stream Let’s Start Here below.

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Lil Yachty Shares New Album ‘Let’s Start Here’

Yachty's latest marks his fifth studio album and arrives following the release of his 2021 project ‘Birthday Mix 6.’ Last year, he bagged a hit with "Poland."

Image via Publicist

Lil Yachty ’s first new studio album in three years has arrived .

The release of Let’s Start Here  was preceded by the rollout of a suspenseful skit in which the artist was depicted strolling into a facility deemed “the Department of Mental Tranquility.”

View this photo on Instagram

Stream Let’s Start Here below via Spotify . When unveiling the cover art this week, Yachty thanked fans for their patience when pointing to what he’s billing as a “second chapter.”

Yachty also shared visuals for “Say Something,” which you can watch below.

View this video on YouTube

Last October, Yachty scored a massively ubiquitous hit in the form of the decidedly brief “ Poland ,” which saw him warping his voice in a unique fashion that kept the song on constant rotation for millions of listeners. During a subsequent appearance on the ZIAS! YouTube channel, Yachty provided some insight on the track’s hook, namely its reference to Poland. According to Yachty, that portion of the track was actually inspired by seeing someone who was “just drinking a Poland Spring water bottle” in the studio.

“Poland” appropriately wound up being ranked by Complex among the best songs of 2022 . 

Later this year, fans can expect to see Yachty make a guest appearance on the sixth season (a.k.a. “Season 666”) of The Eric Andre Show. Yachty was confirmed in an Adult Swim announcement last May and will be joined by Tinashe, Jon Hamm, Diplo, Natasha Lyonne, Raven-Symoné, Rico Nasty, Meagan Good, Cypress Hill, and more.  

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Lil Yachty's Label Concrete Boyz set to release their first collaboration project 'It's Us Volume 1' this April

A ccording to NFR Podcast, Lil Yachty's record label, Concrete Boys (also known as Concrete Boyz), is set to release their first collaboration project titled It's Us: Volume 1 on all streaming platforms this April.

NFR's official X account posted on March 25, confirming the release date of the Concrete Boyz project as April 5, 2024. The post also revealed the featured artists, including Lil Yachty, Karrahbooo, Draft Day, DC2Trill, and Camo. The tweet read:

"LIL YACHTY, KARRAHBOOO, DRAFT DAY, DC2TRILL, CAMO!"

The tracklist for the upcoming album is yet to be confirmed, but based on the artists involved in this project, it's likely to showcase a fusion of alternative rock, R&B, and rap.

Lil Yachty and Concrete Boys Discography

Yachty (Lil Boat), who is currently signed to Quality Control, incorporated his own Record Label Concrete Boyz, a few years ago in an attempt to bring upcoming artists in his genre to the spotlight.

Over the years, Yachty and his team have been slowly recruiting rappers and artists from across the music industry, from 31 Camo to Karahbooo, all of whose music appears to have been inspired by Boat's discography.

Lil Yachty has also collaborated with his signees on some of his previous work. Below are two songs officially released alongside Artist Draft Day:

• Demon Time (Feat. Draft Day)
• POPOVICH Freestyle (Feat. Draft Day)

On May 29, 2020, Yachty released his fourth studio album, titled Lil Boat 3 , across all DSPs (Digital Streaming Platforms) via Quality Control Music and Motown Records. The 19-track project included a track titled Concrete Boys .

This track acted as the official introduction to the "Concrete Crew" he was building with his record label. The song includes a shout-out to the Concrete Boys in the chorus when Yachty implies that when his "back is against the wall," he can always rely on his crew to come through for him.

Another notable bar from Lil Yachty's song has been listed below:

"I just woke up, dreamin' 'bout the rose (Oh my God) / They had ni**as 'round me who don't stand on toes (Hell nah) / Barely ever do I think about my foes / How much longer will I live? Only God knows."

On December 16, 2023, a song titled Mo Jams was released on the official YouTube channel for Concrete Boys, alongside a music video that featured most of the CB roster, except for 31 Camo. Mo Jams was produced by Rawbone and acts as the first official collaboration between the members of Concrete Boys.

This track, although not being released on DSPs, has garnered significant attention for an upcoming collaboration project by racking up almost 4 million views on YouTube.

As fans await a Concrete Boys collaboration album, Lil Yachty continues to impress fans by following up on his widely acclaimed 2023 project Let's Start Here, which found the rapper delving into a more experimental sound with his music.

Notably, Yachty has been releasing a string of singles, which include his collaboration with Fred Again.. on stayinit. The rapper was also featured on Lyrical Lemonade's debut studio album, All Is Yellow , which dropped two months ago in January 2024.

Lil Yachty Tell His Concrete Boys Crew ‘Let’s Get On Dey Ass’ With An Electrifying New Video

Earlier this year, Lil Yachty launched his record label, Concrete Rekordz , and signed his first act: The raucous, Atlanta-based crew Concrete Boys, which includes a collection of proteges Yachty believes can get hip-hop out of the “ terrible state ” he fretted over last year. To that end, he’s been releasing a slew of off-the-wall, free verse-style singles, including “ A Cold Sunday ,” “ Something Ether ,” and now, “Let’s Get On Dey Ass,” an electrifying track in the vein of fellow ATLien Playboi Carti’s amorphous, video gamey sound.

In the colorful video for the song, Yachty and the Boys (and Karrahbooo — I guess it’s like a “Storm from the X-Men” situation) vibe out and parade through a series of sparse tableaux sporting matching gear to show off their team spirit. They also demonstrate an astonishing array of complex high-fives, careen through the Georgia woods in a luxury SUV, and peruse racks of vacuum sealed fashion pieces. The vibe just screams good times and camaraderie, and suggests more boisterous and defiant hits to come.

Yachty isn’t just trying to save hip-hop, though; last month, he also teamed up with UK producer James Blake for an experimental collaborative album called Bad Cameo .

Watch Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Get On Dey Ass” video above.