“Let’s Start Here.” Review — Lil Yachty takes us to the Dark Side of the Moon with a delightful genre shift.

BEST OF THE WEEK

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JANUARY 27

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BEST OF THE WEEK | JANUARY 27 |

Lil Yachty’s returns with a surprise alternative rock album that puts him in a league of his own.

One of the biggest artists to come out of the Soundcloud era, Lil Yachty has spent the last half decade attempting to find the success he once had coming out of the 2016 XXL Freshman Class. While his first album, Lil Boat, garnered a decent enough response, the rapper has plateaued in both commercial and critical success, and his discography ranges from absolute misfires like Teenage Emotion and decent-yet-bloated releases like Lil Boat 3.

Yachty calls Let’s Start Here “chapter 2” of his career. Coming off the heels of his 2021 mixtape Michigan Boy Boat, the artist has completely reinvented himself, joining the ranks of artists like Childish Gambino and Tyler, the Creator who had also decided to make a hard 180 degree turn in musical style. And like Gambino and Tyler before him, the ambitious change pays off.

Let’s Start Here is a Pink Floyd homage — and a good one at that — that never lets it’s foot off the gas pedal. From the first track, “the BLACK seminole.”, Yachty throws you into a world of psychedelic rock complete with a three minute long instrumental outro of warbling synths and wildly distorted guitar licks. For every laid back track like “running out of time” or “sAy sOMETHINg”, there are vicious rock anthems like “IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!” and high energy vibes like “sHouLd i B?”. The record is meticulously balanced, with a tight tracklist that wastes very little time and keeps the listener engaged and entertained all throughout.

The production — handled mainly by the team of Patrick Wimberly (of Chairlift fame), Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, common collaborator SADPONY, and Yachty himself — is immaculate. The drums on each track are incredibly lively and dynamic and — unlike most of Yachty’s discography — they’re totally off the grid. Bubbly synths are omnipotent on Let’s Start Here, with some sonically similar to Tyler, the Creator’s genre shifting IGOR. Others feel ripped out of Kevin Parker’s personal synthesizer collection, especially on the synth-pop love song “paint THE sky”. Guitars with shoegaze-style production are another important foundational instrument: phasers, delays, and filters all dominate the sonics of the album. The instrumentals are warm, engulfing the listener in a colorful pool of LSD where your skin absorbs every molecule of psychedelia in its pores. Nostalgic and saturated, bold and energetic, Let’s Start Here stays true to its influences.

While the record’s production is enough to stand on, it’s important to remember that Yachty has a job to do as the lead vocalist. Yachty’s singing is okay. There are moments, such as the hook on “the ride-” where Yachty uses his unique timbre to his advantage, adding to the psychedelic aura of the entire record. However, the opposite does exist at times. On “THE zone~”, Yachty’s crooning is especially sleepy, bringing down what would be a great song to just a good one. The effort is appreciated, but not always successful in execution. Lyrically, Yachty is raw and vulnerable. There are a few songs where Yachty reaches out to a partner, one that assumedly is not willing to reach back. On the anthemic “sHouLd i B?”, Yachty asks a question that every young couple asks themselves in the heat of the moment: “Am I mad at what you did? I don't think so. But should I be?” Yachty is also admirably self aware, and pieces together a spoken word interlude on the track “:(failure(:” where he speaks on his place in the industry and reminisces on his career: “I’ve seen failure a few times. More recently than before actually”.

There are three songs where everything — namely vocals and production — gels together perfectly. The aforementioned opening track, “the BLACK seminole.” could be one of the strongest opening songs of the last couple years. The laid back guitar beat on the first half of the song has effortless groove, and the buildup to the instrumental outro consisting of a guitar solo and haunting female vocals is perfectly paced. Every Pink Floyd/Funkadelic-ism is incredibly well executed. It’s just an absolute monster of a song.

Towards the middle of the tracklist is the eccentric and grungy “IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!”, where Yachty’s eerie title chant bangs around your skull. The nightmare acid trip pauses about halfway through the track, where Diana Gordon’s gorgeous vocals finally give you a breather. Not even a minute later, however, Yachty returns to throw you back into the nightmare. Will you ever escape the roller coaster? Yachty doesn’t want to let you.

The final track, “REACH THE SUNSHINE”, is a perfect closer with a Daniel Caesar feature that feels ripped out of a Western. The low energy of the beginning of the track transitions cleanly into fat analog synths that threaten to knock the air out of your lungs. Caesar returns for a verse before Yachty sends you to the wolves with another haunting three-and-a-half minute instrumental outro. The listener’s journey ends the same way it began both conceptually and sonically with the addition of the same delayed synths found in the intro track. It suggests that finally, after this arduous voyage, you can breathe — but perhaps taking a trip around Yachty’s musical sun isn’t a bad idea.

These three songs feel like the thesis for the record, all of which are six to seven minutes that lack traditional song structure. The songs have hills and valleys, moments for listeners to decompress and digest, and other moments that demand attention and throw you into the back of your seat. It’s a proper album experience, a roller coaster even, with cohesion and intent, which — in the streaming era especially — feels like it has been thrown away in favor of the “playlist album”: a tactic to increase charting and sales numbers. Putting together a project like this when — just a few months ago — Yachty had the keys to the virality kingdom with “Poland” is extremely admirable. He could’ve easily just asked for a few more rage beats, a couple high profile features, and walked away with an album that probably would’ve done fairly well commercially and critically. Instead, releasing the psych rock album that he had been sitting on for two years felt more aligned with his artistic vision, and regardless of the way people feel about this record, the decision to flip the script on his own terms is praiseworthy.

Lil Yachty has been on the path to revitalizing his brand for the last few years. Lil Boat 3 officially put his bubblegum trap image in a coffin. Michigan Boat Boy was well received and it seemed like Yachty was on the upswing. He executive produced Drake and 21 Savage’s collaborative Her Loss, widely considered a return to form for the Canadian rapper. Before his New Jersey listening party, Yachty claimed that all he’s ever wanted was to be taken seriously as an artist. For an artist who has been considered lesser than many of his peers in the hip hop space, this record officially puts him in a league of his own, joined by other genre-jumpers who might as well be considered pure artisans in their space. This seems to be par for the course. Childish Gambino was considered an immature punchline rapper before the release of the funk revival Awaken, My Love. Tyler, the Creator was more famous for eating a cockroach on camera than he was for any sort of cultural impact before the genre-bent IGOR propelled him into superstardom. Yachty’s image was already on the turnaround, but with Let’s Start Here, Yachty has given us a perfect jumping on point to the next chapter of his artistry.

9/10

Favorite Songs: the BLACK seminole., drive ME crazy!, IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON!!!!, paint THE sky, REACH THE SUNSHINE.

Least Favorite Songs: the zone~