Lil Yachty released his sixth studio album, “Let’s Start Here,” on January 27, 2023, a psychedelic hip-hop record that has gone on to polarize audiences.
People are praising Yachty for departing from his normal heavy trap influenced, monotone style of rapping and experimenting with a more psychedelic and vocally ranged style that he displays on this record. Others are bashing Yachty for making a disingenuous album that cashes in on the styles and sounds made popular by bands and musicians such as Pink Floyd or Jimi Hendrix, while also just sounding bad sonically on his vocal performance.
I personally fall on the side of the latter in thinking that this record felt like a departure that didn’t come from Lil Yachty’s heart but rather from his ego, as he knew that he could garner praise from a hip-hop fanbase that rarely expands their musical palette and be given some credit for being “experimental.”
For me this just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It feels to me as if people are being tricked into thinking this album is good, and I think there’s one big reason. The current bar for hip hop is set so low in comparison to, say, five years ago because of social media, especially TikTok. Nowadays all you need for a song to hit the charts is a catchy hook, and some wavy synths and boom you’ve got a hit. Because of this new, low standard, any departure from mainstream hip hop seems groundbreaking even if it doesn’t take much effort.
For me this record by Yachty falls into this category, a low effort project that is getting labeled as innovative, experimental, left field, and inventive when it doesn’t deserve those tags, further diluting those tags and spitting in the face of anyone who actually puts their heart into being innovative, or experimental.
I want to make it clear that I am not mad at Lil Yachty for making this album, and I don’t think his intention was to misguide the masses, I think Yachty truly enjoys the psychedelic or funkadelic genre of music and wanted to dabble in the sound. For me its the reaction of the masses that occurred and the overall state of hip-hop that is upsetting me.
This album is being slated as groundbreaking but Yachty himself didn’t create anything new, which is fine, but I just think people need to pump the breaks a little bit. Yachty had a lot of help making this album. He sampled songs from Pink Floyd, specifically “The Great Gig in the Sky,” on his first track, “The Black Seminole”, and he had production from Ben Goldwasser of the popular psychedelic band MGMT and writing from Mac Demarco, another popular indie rock and psychedelic rock artist.
In my opinion these artists deserve more credit than Lil Yachty does for this record as they pioneered the sound and laid the foundation for this project. In other words, if you like the sounds of this album go listen to these artists I mentioned as they have a whole catalogue of this kind of music. And if you like this album, continue listening to it as it does contain great music from a genre that I personally love.
My final thoughts on Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Start Here” is that it’s a good collaboration album but nothing more than that. It’s not groundbreaking, and it doesn’t push the envelope for what hip-hop or psychedelic rock could be. It is merely a mashup of the two sounds, and for me it was a mashup that didn’t quite stick the landing, but I hope Lil Yachty expands on this sound and does make something truly groundbreaking and original after his experience with working with these great artists. Intentional or not, the idea of this growth as an artist fits perfectly with the title of “Let’s Start Here.”
