Lil Yachty on His Rock Album ‘Let’s Start Here,’ Rapping With J. Cole, and What’s Next
variety.comJem Aswad Executive Editor, Music 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.
While Yachty’s new era was teased late last year with the trippy, 83-second-long single “Poland” (which isn’t on the album), at a listening session for “Let’s Start Here” in New York last December, a number of hip-hop journalists seemed perplexed by the new sound, which most directly evokes Pink Floyd, Funkadelic and other sounds from the early ‘70s.
But when Yachty played his third headlining gig with his all-female new touring band at Central Park’s Summerstage last month, he basically split the difference.
The crowd responded enthusiastically when Yachty and the band opened and closed the show with songs from “Let’s Start Here,” but they went bonkers for his hip-hop set in the middle, where the mostly Gen Z audience rapped along loudly with his late 2010s hits like the above.
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