Lil Yachty - Let's Start Here. REVIEW

7.0/10

Lil Yachty is known for his carefree, fun, and effortless style of rapping, but he decided to enter 2023 with an unexpected twist on his usual genre. He's come out with a psychedelic, Pink Floyd/Tame Impala-inspired album, and it was a pleasant surprise.

The album opens extremely strong with the track "the BLACK seminole.". Even though this song contains an awkward and rough vocal delivery from Yachty, its production is what shines through, with futuristic synths, and a beautiful guitar break about two minutes through the track. This is a perfect intro track; it leaves you hooked and wanting to hear what's next. Unfortunately, "the ride-" features again a weak vocal performance from Yachty, but also again has solid production (not as grand as the opening track) and a great performance from Teezo Touchdown. The excitement takes a brief step down, however, with "running out of time", an all-around sleepy track with nothing to write home about, which disappointed me due to Magdalena Bay being in the production credits. "pRETTy" also doesn't seem to go anywhere and is lyrically flat.

The album, however, quickly picks up again with "the zone~", a track containing great vocal production, a solid feature from Justine Skye, and a beautiful grand closing. "WE SAW THE SUN!" offers lovely psychedelic and dreamy synths, with the perfect amount of satisfying reverb on Yachty's vocals. "drive ME crazy!" is one of the more groovy cuts on the project, with light airy synths buried in the background and a great little bassline. "IVE OFFICIALLY LOST ViSiON" is another fabulous standout track on the project following the opening track. The vocal production, drums, overall beat, and vocals from Diana Gordon are stunning.

The album sadly takes another step back with the track "sAy sOMETHINg", which to me is a very filler-sounding track. "paint THE sky" is an underwhelming and snoozy cut, offering not much to write home about. "sHouLd i B?" offers great guitar, but again is vocally and lyrically underwhelming.

The album picks up near the end, however, with a solid Fousheé feature on the track "The Alchemist." The closing track, however, is another highlight. Daniel Caesar sounds absolutely heavenly, and I love the beautifully dense synth that shockingly comes in. The synths that close the track, as well as the piano, are a beautifully peaceful and satisfying end to the record as a whole.

Looking past the brief moments of inconsistency and flatness some of the tracks on this project have to offer, Lil Yachty comes in with a surprisingly stunning album with many moments of greatness.

give it a listen