Well That Was Interesting

Have You Been Paying Attention To Lil Yachty?

This post is essentially a list of things that Lil Yachty has done recently that I find interesting. Why Lil Yachty? I don’t know. It just seems like my algorithm thinks that I’ll be interested in whatever it is that he’s doing at the moment and guess what, it’s mostly right.

If you’re wondering what I’ll be doing in the coming days Shouting At the Screen is at Littlefield on 3/17 (tickets) and our guests are Katie Nolan and Dan Soder. The night before I’ll be spinning at Bunton’s for Mekdot +Friends (free). I’ll also be on Twitch from 2-4pm on 3/13.

If you want to know about new releases I regret to inform you that it was a very slow week so most of the stuff over at Rec’s N Effect are just old songs that are new to me.

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I want to start this off by saying that interesting is not a diss! It isn’t a qualitative assessment of a thing so much as an acknowledgement of that things unique qualities. I don’t want to look the word up to see if that definition is correct because it feels correct to me so we’ll just settle for that one.

For the record I wouldn’t call myself a fan of his music. I also wouldn’t say that I am not a fan of his music. I am ambivalent towards his music, extremely ambivalent. It’s easy to ignore the stuff he does that I’m not into but as of late he’s been bubbling to the surface more and more.

I’ve been aware of him since he popped up on the scene. I’m pretty sure he was one of the artists people called a mumble rapper and boy did mumble rap really piss everybody off. So with that said he was kinda hard to not pay attention to and mostly because he was so… bad interesting. He was also had one of the better more interesting verses of his XXL Freshman Freestyle Cypher appearance which says… something?

These days he’s graduated from mumbles to vibes and honestly he’s pretty enjoyable for a what he is. He even wrote Act Up for the City Girls which probably isn’t at all impressive if you don’t like the City Girls or have never heard the song but I was impressed when I found out that he wrote it.

I think know that being a DJ has changed how I listen to music and the type of things that I enjoy. I also am pretty empathetic about music. Like I just want to understand why it exists, why I don’t like it, who the audience is for it and who the artist is that made it.

He’s always had great album covers and videos but it seems that he’s entered his art project phase. This is a place that I would have never imagined the guy who made ‘Minnesota’ to end up in but I guess stranger things have happened.

In the course of a calendar year he’s gone from psychedelic rock to detroit drill to folk to sample loops and I find that pretty damn interesting. In some ways it feels like he is just trying stuff out creatively but all of it feels like a space he is comfortable in.

I mean he’s not gonna make you rewind his verse but I can almost guarantee that something interesting will happen.

Remember that time Joe Budden pressed him for not knowing if he was in a 360 deal?

In some ways I like to think of what he’s doing as an off shoot of what Drake does which is dabble in genres as he sees fit with reckless abandon. Just doing whatever feels okay in that moment and not worrying about what anyone thinks because no one thinks too deeply about anything anymore.

I don’t know maybe he’s just trying to finish out a publishing deal or something but the way that he’s collaborating with people across several genres is fascinating to say the least.

Okay on with the list.

I know a lot of you are like ‘I did not sign up to read about Lil Yachty’ and if you got this far into the newsletter I am truly sorry for making you read about something you aren’t interested in. I’ll do better next week!

Lil Yachty stops by The Lot

This is honestly the video that made me want to write this post.

If you don’t live in Brooklyn you gotta understand that this room is basically just a shipping container with turntables in it. As if the collaboration isn’t odd enough it’s kinda weird to think that he just pulled up to The Lot.

Like was there a Maybach outside of this tiny ass shipping container that doubles as a coffee shop/radio station? Did he take the train there? I know NYC is pretty chill around celebrities so maybe he did but probably not. Still… very interesting.

How does Yachty link up with Fred Again? I mean I guess shuffle culture got them all living next to each other in your streaming service but it’s still pretty jarring for me to see. This is a cool as video tho.

Lego Ring

This is the other video that made me think that I needed to write this post. Yachty just randomly popping up with a folk singer? Like what is happening here? Also why do I kinda like it?

I don’t know much about Faye but it seems that her fanbase is pretty divided about this team up but apparently they have a relationship stemming back to middle school so it makes sense.

Let’s Start Here

Some of you may not know that his last album was a departure album that was basically a bunch of psychedelic rap songs. And Drive Me Wild is a JAM. Not even being ironic or sarcastic about it either.

That hat is hilarious. I forgot to mention that he is in his costume era which basically means that you’ll be able to dress up for him for halloween and people will know within a few guesses.

The Secret Recipe

Yachty got the J.Cole Stimulus package and while Jermaine obviously is the draw here the part that lured me in was to see how bad of a mismatch it was. Spoiler alert: it wasn’t that big of a mismatch at all. I mean he didn’t kick Cole’s ass but he also didn’t get his ass kicked which is nice to see.

It was also a song that he dropped after dropping a departure album so basically he departed his departure.

Mr Fortunate

It sounds like Tierra helped to write some of his verse and she kills as usual. Apparently they are pretty good friends and that’s pretty cool if you ask me. He did an interview with her for Rolling Stone’s Artists on Artists thing and it was… interesting. Tierra was very playful and he was not, he was very austere and serious about his art.

He’s taken this elder statesman role in the game and not only is it slightly disorienting but has also provided us with some more interesting rappers (like Karahbooo), bad takes (LOL) and pretty odd interesting content in the form of his A Safe Place Podcast.

He also apparently lives with Drake from time to time and wrote/produced on a bunch of Drake’s latest releases which is… interesting!

Poland

I’m not on TikTok but I know some of you are which means that you probably have heard this song. It’s a weird song and the thing that makes it weird is his vocal performance. I feel like he decided to use more autotune than usual or something but then it dawned on me. He is basically taking Post Malone’s warble. It’s like reverse gentrification and my dislike for Post Malone’s ‘music’ is so deep that I honestly find this to be commendable

Something Ether

I honestly don’t like this song that much but the video is dope if you can deal with strobes. This just goes back to how he’s figured out his image. I really want to use the word sartorial but I don’t think it works for what I’m trying to explain. He just knows what he’s doing visually and has made some interesting images both still and moving.

Okay I guess I should bring this to a close since it’s probably some of your worst nightmare and if you read this far I truly appreciate you. I’ll be back with something more INTERESTING next week.

But before I go here’s one more video from a while back where he talks about his diet and it is BLEAK. To be completely honest this whole post could have been about his diet because apparently for a long time this dude didn’t eat anything other than pizza and chicken nuggets. I mean he was also a literal child but it’s still something I think about a lot because his diet kept coming up in interviews and he kept saying ‘i only eat pizza and snacks’.

Okay I’ll stop now. I know way too much about him lol.