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Lil Yachty On His Big Rock Pivot: ‘F-ck Any of the Albums I Dropped Before This One’

With his adventurous, psychedelic new album, 'Let's Start Here,' he's left mumble rap behind — and finally created a project he's proud of.

By Lyndsey Havens

Lyndsey Havens

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Lil Yachty, presented by Doritos, will perform at Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW on March 16 .

Lil Yachty: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

Someone has sparked a blunt in the planetarium.

It may be a school night, but no one has come to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., to learn. Instead, the hundreds of fans packed into the domed theater on Jan. 26 have come to hear Lil Yachty’s latest album as he intended: straight through — and with an open mind. Or, as Yachty says with a mischievous smile: “I hope y’all took some sh-t.”

For the next 57 minutes and 16 seconds, graphics of exploding spaceships, green giraffes and a quiet road through Joshua Tree National Park accompany Yachty’s sonically divergent — and at this point, unreleased — fifth album, Let’s Start Here . For a psychedelic rock project that plays like one long song, the visual aids not only help attendees embrace the bizarre, but also function as a road map for Yachty’s far-out trip, signaling that there is, in fact, a tracklist.

It’s a night the artist has arguably been waiting for his whole career — to finally release an album he feels proud of. An album that was, he says, made “from scratch” with all live instrumentation. An album that opens with a nearly seven-minute opus, “the BLACK seminole.,” that he claims he had to fight most of his collaborative team to keep as one, not two songs. An album that, unlike his others, has few features and is instead rich with co-writers like Mac DeMarco, Nick Hakim, Alex G and members of MGMT, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Chairlift. An album he believes will finally earn him the respect and recognition he has always sought.

Sitting in a Brooklyn studio in East Williamsburg not far from where he made most of Let’s Start Here in neighboring Greenpoint, it’s clear he has been waiting to talk about this project in depth for some time. Yachty is an open book, willing to answer anything — and share any opinion. (Especially on the slice of pizza he has been brought, which he declares “tastes like ass.”) Perhaps his most controversial take at the moment? “F-ck any of the albums I dropped before this one.”

His desire to move on from his past is understandable. When Yachty entered the industry in his mid-teens with his 2016 major-label debut, the Lil Boat mixtape, featuring the breakout hit “One Night,” he found that along with fame came sailing the internet’s choppy waters. Skeptics often took him to task for not knowing — or caring, maybe — about rap’s roots, and he never shied away from sharing hot takes on Twitter. With his willingness and ability to straddle pop and hip-hop, Yachty produced music he once called “bubble-gum trap” (he has since denounced that phrase) that polarized audiences and critics. Meanwhile, his nonchalant delivery got him labeled as a mumble rapper — another identifier he was never fond of because it felt dismissive of his talent.

“There’s a lot of kids who haven’t heard any of my references,” he continues. “They don’t know anything about Bon Iver or Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath or James Brown. I wanted to show people a different side of me — and that I can do anything, most importantly.”

Let’s Start Here is proof. Growing up in Atlanta, the artist born Miles McCollum was heavily influenced by his father, a photographer who introduced him to all kinds of sounds. Yachty, once easily identifiable by his bright red braids, found early success by posting songs like “One Night” to SoundCloud, catching the attention of Kevin “Coach K” Lee, co-founder/COO of Quality Control Music, now home to Migos, Lil Baby and City Girls. In 2015, Coach K began managing Yachty, who in summer 2016 signed a joint-venture deal with Motown, Capitol Records and Quality Control.

“Yachty was me when I was 18 years old, when I signed him. He was actually me,” says Coach K today. (In 2021, Adam Kluger, whose clients include Bhad Bhabie, began co-managing Yachty.) “All the eclectic, different things, we shared that with each other. He had been wanting to make this album from the first day we signed him. But you know — coming as a hip-hop artist, you have to play the game.”

Yachty played it well. To date, he has charted 17 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 , including two top 10 hits for his features on DRAM’s melodic 2016 smash “Broccoli” and Kyle’s 2017 pop-rap track “iSpy.” His third-highest-charting entry arrived unexpectedly last year: the 93-second “Poland,” a track Yachty recorded in about 10 minutes where his warbly vocals more closely resemble singing than rapping. ( Let’s Start Here collaborator SADPONY saw “Poland” as a temperature check that proved “people are going to like this Yachty.”)

Beginning with 2016’s Lil Boat mixtape, all eight of Yachty’s major-label-released albums and mixtapes have charted on the Billboard 200 . Three have entered the top 10, including Let’s Start Here , which debuted and peaked at No. 9. And while Yachty has only scored one No. 1 album before ( Teenage Emotions topped Rap Album Sales), Let’s Start Here debuted atop three genre charts: Top Rock & Alternative Albums , Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums .

“It feels good to know that people in that world received this so well,” says Motown Records vp of A&R Gelareh Rouzbehani. “I think it’s a testament to Yachty going in and saying, ‘F-ck what everyone thinks. I’m going to create something that I’ve always wanted to make — and let us hope the world f-cking loves it.’ ”

Yet despite Let’s Start Here ’s many high-profile supporters, some longtime detractors and fans alike were quick to criticize certain aspects of it, from its art — Yachty quote-tweeted one remark , succinctly replying, “shut up” — to the music itself. Once again, he found himself facing another tidal wave of discourse. But this time, he was ready to ride it. “This release,” Kluger says, “gave him a lot of confidence.”

“I was always kind of nervous to put out music, but now I’m on some other sh-t,” Yachty says. “It was a lot of self-assessing and being very real about not being happy with where I was musically, knowing I’m better than where I am. Because the sh-t I was making did not add up to the sh-t I listened to.

“I just wanted more,” he continues. “I want to be remembered. I want to be respected.”

Last spring, Lil Yachty gathered his family, collaborators and team at famed Texas studio complex Sonic Ranch.

“I remember I got there at night and drove down because this place is like 30 miles outside El Paso,” Coach K says. “I walked in the room and just saw all these instruments and sh-t, and the vibe was just so ill. And I just started smiling. All the producers were in the room, his assistant, his dad. Yachty comes in, puts the album on. We got to the second song, and I told everybody, ‘Stop the music.’ I walked over to him and just said, ‘Man, give me a hug.’ I was like, ‘Yachty, I am so proud of you.’ He came into the game bold, but [to make] this album, you have to be very bold. And to know that he finally did it, it was overwhelming.”

SADPONY (aka Jeremiah Raisen) — who executive-produced Let’s Start Here and, in doing so, spent nearly eight straight months with Yachty — says the time at Sonic Ranch was the perfect way to cap off the months of tunnel vision required while making the album in Brooklyn. “That was new alone,” says Yachty. “I’ve recorded every album in Atlanta at [Quality Control]. That was the first time I recorded away from home. First time I recorded with a new engineer,” Miles B.A. Robinson, a Saddle Creek artist.

Yachty couldn’t wait to put it out, and says he turned it in “a long time ago. I think it was just label sh-t and trying to figure out the right time to release it.” For Coach K, it was imperative to have the physical product ready on release date, given that Yachty had made “an experience” of an album. And lately, most pressing plants have an average turnaround time of six to eight months.

Fans, however, were impatient. On Christmas, one month before Let’s Start Here would arrive, the album leaked online. It was dubbed Sonic Ranch . “Everyone was home with their families, so no one could pull it off the internet,” recalls Yachty. “That was really depressing and frustrating.”

Then, weeks later, the album art, tracklist and release date also leaked. “My label made a mistake and sent preorders to Amazon too early, and [the site] posted it,” Yachty says. “So I wasn’t able to do the actual rollout for my album that I wanted to. Nothing was a secret anymore. It was all out. I had a whole plan that I had to cancel.” He says the biggest loss was various videos he made to introduce and contextualize the project, all of which “were really weird … [But] I wasn’t introducing it anymore. People already knew.” Only one, called “Department of Mental Tranquility,” made it out, just days before the album.

Yachty says he wasn’t necessarily seeking a mental escape before making Let’s Start Here , but confesses that acid gave him one anyway. “I guess maybe the music went along with it,” he says. The album title changed four or five times, he says, from Momentary Bliss (“It was meant to take you away from reality … where you’re truly listening”) to 180 Degrees (“Because it’s the complete opposite of anything I’ve ever done, but people were like, ‘It’s too on the nose’ ”) to, ultimately, Let’s Start Here — the best way, he decided, to succinctly summarize where he was as an artist: a seven-year veteran, but at 25 years old, still eager to begin a new chapter.

Taking inspiration from Dark Side , Yachty relied on three women’s voices throughout the album, enlisting Fousheé, Justine Skye and Diana Gordon. Otherwise, guest vocals are spare. Daniel Caesar features on album closer “Reach the Sunshine.,” while the late Bob Ross (of The Joy of Painting fame) has a historic posthumous feature on “We Saw the Sun!”

Rouzbehani tells Billboard that Ross’ estate declined Yachty’s request at first: “I think a big concern of theirs was that Yachty is known as a rapper, and Bob Ross and his brand are very clean. They didn’t want to associate with anything explicit.” But Yachty was adamant, and Rouzbehani played the track for Ross’ team and also sent the entire album’s lyrics to set the group at ease. “With a lot of back-and-forth, we got the call,” she says. “Yachty is the first artist that has gotten a Bob Ross clearance in history.”

From the start, Coach K believed Let’s Start Here would open lots of doors for Yachty — and ultimately, other artists, too. Questlove may have said it best, posting the album art on Instagram with a lengthy caption that read in part: “this lp might be the most surprising transition of any music career I’ve witnessed in a min, especially under the umbrella of hip hop … Sh-t like this (envelope pushing) got me hyped about music’s future.”

Recently, Lil Yachty held auditions for an all-women touring band. “It was an experience for like Simon Cowell or Randy [Jackson],” he says, offering a simple explanation for the choice: “In my life, women are superheroes.”

And according to Yachty, pulling off his show will take superhuman strength: “Because the show has to match the album. It has to be big.” As eager as he was to release Let’s Start Here , he’s even more antsy to perform it live — but planning a tour, he says, required gauging the reaction to it. “This is so new for me, and to be quite honest with you, the label [didn’t] know how [the album] would do,” he says. “Also, I haven’t dropped an album in like three years. So we don’t even know how to plan a tour right now because it has been so long and my music is so different.”

While Yachty’s last full-length studio album, Lil Boat 3 , arrived in 2020, he released the Michigan Boy Boat mixtape in 2021, a project as reverential of the state’s flourishing hip-hop scenes in Detroit and Flint as Let’s Start Here is of its psych-rock touchstones. And though he claims he doesn’t do much with his days, his recent accomplishments, both musical and beyond, suggest otherwise. He launched his own cryptocurrency, YachtyCoin, at the end of 2020; signed his first artist, Draft Day, to his Concrete Boyz label at the start of 2021; invested in the Jewish dating app Lox Club; and launched his own line of frozen pizza, Yachty’s Pizzeria, last September. (He has famously declared he has never eaten a vegetable; at his Jersey City listening event, there was an abundance of candy, doughnut holes and Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts.)

But there are only two things that seem to remotely excite him, first and foremost of which is being a father. As proud as he is of Let’s Start Here , he says it comes in second to having his now 1-year-old daughter — though he says with a laugh that she “doesn’t really give a f-ck” about his music yet. “I haven’t played [this album] for her, but her mom plays her my old stuff,” he continues. “The mother of my child is Dominican and Puerto Rican, so she loves Selena — she plays her a lot . [We watch] the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez a sh-t ton and a lot of Disney movie sh-t, like Frozen , Lion King and that type of vibe.”

Aside from being a dad, he most cares about working with other artists. Recently, he flew eight of his biggest fans — most of whom he has kept in touch with for years — to Atlanta. He had them over, played Let’s Start Here , took them to dinner and bowling, introduced them to his mom and dad, and then showed them a documentary he made for the album. (He’s not sure if he’ll release it.) One of the fans is an aspiring rapper; naturally, the two made a song together.

Yachty wants to keep working with artists and producers outside of hip-hop, mentioning the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and even sharing his dream of writing a ballad for Elton John. (“I know I could write him a beautiful song.”) With South Korean music company HYBE’s recent purchase of Quality Control — a $300 million deal — Yachty’s realm of possibility is bigger than ever.

But he’s not ruling out his genre roots. Arguably, Let’s Start Here was made for the peers and heroes he played it for first — and was inspired by hip-hop’s chameleons. “I would love to do a project with Tyler [The Creator],” says Yachty. “He’s the reason I made this album. He’s the one who told me to do it, just go for it. He’s so confident and I have so much respect for him because he takes me seriously, and he always has.”

Penske Media Corp. is the largest shareholder of SXSW ; its brands are official media partners of SXSW.

This story originally appeared in the March 11, 2023, issue of Billboard.

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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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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.

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Here's What Lil Yachty Means When He Says He 'Took The Wock To Poland'

After snippets of Lil Yachty ’s “Poland” leaked online, the tune immediately became a viral phenomenon and has proven itself to be just as addictive as the song’s subject matter. Lil Yachty hasn’t released a song in over a year, so it’s no surprise that the song would become a hit with a one liner that’s got all of the social media in a digital grasp.

On Oct. 4, shortly after the leaks, Yachty, or Lil Boat as he’s affectionately known to fans, released the official minute-and-a-half-long song on SoundCloud .

POLAND – LIL YACHTY(PROD. F1LTHY) by Lil Yachty, RD, Lil Boat on #SoundCloud https://t.co/0aw1OHfEWI — C.V Thomas (@lilyachty) October 4, 2022

This is great news for fans of the 25-year-old Georgia native who have been itching for some new music since he dropped his Michigan Boy Boat mixtape last year.

Yachty hasn’t released a song in over a year, and it’s no surprise that the song would become a hit with a one liner that got all of the social media in a digital grasp.

According to Genius , “Poland” was recorded in 2021, and in August of this year, Yachty caught wind of a snippet floating around on the internet, and he wasn’t thrilled. This is when he decided to exclusively drop the track on SoundCloud. The F1LTHY- produced track has since amassed over 4.2 million plays.

Following the instant popularity of the song, it’s been placed on digital streaming platforms, such as Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal.

However, now that they’ve finally got a full length version of “Poland” in their possession, some fans have a few questions about the song’s content.  If you’re an old head, you might be asking yourself the same.

What does Wock mean?

Wock is short for Wockhardt , an India-based pharmaceutical company that produces — you guessed it — promethazine and codeine cough syrup. For those who aren’t familiar with promethazine and codeine, those are the key ingredients in lean. Back in the 90s, all the rappers used to rap about Actavis, another global pharmaceutical company. However, it looks like Yachty wants to make Wock the new trend as he travels around the European country of Poland .

We definitely don’t encourage ”Wock” or other drugs, and we still don’t understand why taking it to Poland is a big deal. Codeine is an opiod , highly addictive, and misuse can result in overdose or even death.

Although the subject matter itself isn’t worthy of a theme song, you can still check out some of Twitter’s responses to the track below.

One fan re-created a cover for the song, and Yachty said, he’s changing his current cover to this!

& ON GOD IM CHANGIN DA COVER 2 DIS TMMR https://t.co/GRf1zL1sue — C.V Thomas (@lilyachty) October 11, 2022

Fans were anxiously waiting for the DSP release.

drop on Spotify i need to vibe — Blooper (@BlooperBraves) October 8, 2022

Another fan professed his adoration for the one-liner.

Bro I’m addicted to that line — 𝘼𝙇𝙀𝙓𝙄𝙎❈ (@AlexisArtistry) October 5, 2022

Someone said it’s the best song ever made.

This is the best song ever made — ͏layi (@layi_olusanya) October 4, 2022

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Having Taken the Wock to Poland, Lil Yachty Takes ‘Poland’ to Streaming Services

By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

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Yachty first released “Poland” on Soundcloud last week after snippets of the song were leaked online. The 83-second track quickly gained traction with its woozy, 8-bit beat (produced by F1lthy, Lukrative, and Lucian) and its instantly memorable (and meme-able) hook, which Yachty delivers with a distinct wobble in his voice, “I took the Wock to Poland.” (“Wock” is shorthand for Wockhardt, the pharmaceutical company that makes promethazine and codeine cough syrup.)

& ON GOD IM CHANGIN DA COVER 2 DIS TMMR https://t.co/GRf1zL1sue — CONCRETE BOY BOAT^ (@lilyachty) October 11, 2022

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