Artist: Lil Yachty | Album: Let’s Start Here. | Genre: Psychedelic rock, Neo-psychedelia | Year: 2023

From: Mableton, (GA,) USA | Label: Concrete, Quality Control, Motown

For fans of: Tame Impala, Pink Floyd, Kids See Ghosts

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Lil Yachty is now the most-unexpected artist I’ve ever covered. I could have feasibly seen myself covering other hip-hop artists at some point. Danny Brown’s Atrocity Exhibition is a masterpiece that extensively samples progressive, psychedelic, and krautrock; and his experimental spirit made him someone I thought could have shown up on this site eventually. Lil Yachty’s usual trap stylings made this album a complete left-field surprise, though. (I can’t say I’m exceedingly familiar with his previous work, nor do I know much about hip-hop, more broadly speaking. But I’d heard a few of his songs, and in general I don’t like trap. So please excuse my illiteracy of his other work.)

Let’s Start Here. is fairly comparable to the Kanye West-Kid Cudi collaboration, Kids See Ghosts. But where that duo was still firmly rooted in hip-hop, Yachty’s new release is primarily rock-focused. There are also ample soul and Motown flavors, and hip-hop crops up on occasion. The whole record is dense and lush, and it’s got an engrossing, enveloping quality to it. Autotune is used as an instrument unto itself here. The robotic tones are slathered in reverb, and it complements the dreamy, Afrofuturist tone of this record perfectly.

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