is lil yachty and lil boat the same person

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How to Tell the Difference Between Lil Yachty and Lil Boat

Atlanta-based mumble rapper Lil Yachty released his debut studio album,  “Teenage Emotions,” on May 26 and reintroduced us to his alter egos: Darnell Boat and Lil Boat.

Much like in Lil Yachty’s 2016 mixtape release, “Lil Boat,”  the red-mustachioed and wigged Darnell Boat introduces listeners to his nephews, Lil Yachty and Lil Boat, in the intro of the album. “Yachty and Boat have been working so hard over this past year, and we just want to welcome y’all to ‘Teenage Emotions,’” says Darnell Boat in the first song of the album, “Like A Star.” “They both have lots to say…this time I think Yachty wants to go first.” After, Uncle Darnell effectively leads fans into a concept album that displays the two distinct rap personas of Lil Yachty.

It can be difficult to differentiate between both Lil Boat and Lil Yachty as a first time listener. There are, however, a number of distinguishing traits displayed in both of their approaches to music and lyrics that can help successfully identify who’s who.

Music Style

In an interview with Genius , Lil Yachty said that the defining characteristic of Lil Boat is aggressiveness.” That word sums it all up, as Boat is the more masculine, foul-mouthed, confident rapper of the two. Boat seems to come out and say the things that Yachty feels he couldn’t get away with, while laying down dark and dirty verses to Atlanta-style trap beats in tracks like “DN Freestyle” and “Dirty Mouth.” “It’s all in production,” says Yachty in the interview. “If the beat is like, heavy hitting, that’s Boat.”

Yachty prefers the lighter tones of music, the kind of sound that he’s dubbed as “boat music” in the past. Tracks on the album such as “Better,” which features steel drums reminiscent of Jamaican island music, as well as the heavy-synth eighties-style track, “Bring It Back,” with a sprinkle of a saxophone solo, are all Yachty creations. He tends to lean toward high-pitched, heavily auto-tuned singing, as opposed to forced attempts at mumble rapping like Boat. Positivity and good vibes are common themes in Yachty’s lyrics.

In his bars, Lil Boat is, without a doubt, the typical misogynistic rap star that displays women as sexual objects. Constantly referring to women as “b*tches,” Boat likes to brag about having multiple women that only serve the sexual needs of him and his friends. Boat is only interested in what women can give him, and in songs like “Peek A Boo,” he shows just how little he cares about having meaningful relationships with them with lines like, “F*ck her then f*ck on her sister, I’m ruthless.”

“It’s not Yachty man,” says Yachty in response to that lyric in a separate interview with Genius . “In interviews, that’s Yachty. But that on that paper, that’s Lil Boat. He’s a ruthless dude. He don’t care. Yachty is a nice dude. That’s not him. At all. That n***a Boat, he crazy, know what I’m saying? You never know what he might do.”

Romantic, monogamous, vulnerable and semi-respectful, Yachty has a different approach to love. In tracks like “Forever Young” and “Lady In Yellow,” he sings about wanting to be together forever with his only girl. Showing more awareness of a woman’s agency over her body, Yachty is more concerned with pleasing women and doing what they want.

Though put rather ineloquently, lines like “Baby can I f*ck with you?” and “Let me love on you” are examples of Yachty showing a slight concern for consent. This is in sharp contrast with Boat’s lyrics calling for multiple women to perform oral sex on him, or “Blow like a cello,” which is probably the greatest lyrical oversight in history.

In short, if someone on Tinder were to find Twizzler-hair and multicolored mouth grills attractive, then they should swipe left on Boat and swipe right on Yachty.

It’s not hard to figure out how Boat feels about fame, as Boat is an acronym for “Best of All Time,” according to a tweet from Lil Yachty’s official account. Self-assured and confident, he’s been presenting himself as the self-proclaimed “King of the Teens” since his beginnings. Riding the fame and all that comes with it, Boat likes to rap about the money, cars and diamonds that he didn’t have just a few short years ago.

In contrast, Yachty is unsure of his standing as a public figure. In “Say My Name,” Yachty redundantly sings, “I want you to say my name, say my name, say my, say my name in the crowd,” hinting at his concern for how he is received by his audience, and the popularity he amasses from his fans. Yachty claims to be a normal teenager, (as normal as a six-figure teen can be), and with the emotional years of adolescence comes an inevitable uncertainty of his place in the world.

On Family and Peers

“I didn’t ask for respect, all I care about is that check,” raps Boat on “Dirty Mouth.” Boat doesn’t care about what people think, and he definitely doesn’t care about what the haters are saying about him. He’s just there to do him, and also attempt to emasculate his rivals by acting hard and likening them to female genitalia, like in “FYI (Know Now).”

Yachty is constantly singing about the “ice” on his mother’s wrist, or alluding to the hundred pairs of shoes his sister has in her closet in interviews. He cares about his family and he attributes a lot of his success to his mom. In the intro he sings, “Look mama you made a star,” and the outro, “Momma” is completely dedicated to her, bringing the gratitude full circle.

In his music, Yachty emulates the man that his mom raised him to be, while Boat is the reflection of Yachty as he sees himself fitting into the hip-hop world.

How It Comes Together

Listening to Lil Yachty’s discography is a human behavioral experiment on the effect that constant exposure to something initially unpleasant can have on the subject’s opinion. Someone once likened it to eating vegetables; they taste terrible at first, but become pretty good after recurring exposure. Nothing else captures the initial resistance to Yachty and Boat’s dichotomy and the new sound they create together; in addition to, the acceptance and appreciation by the listener that soon follows.

In its first week, only forty-six thousand copies of “Teenage Emotions” were sold. Lil Yachty’s heavy streaming presence on sites like Soundcloud , where he originally gained his cult following, and apps like Spotify , may have something to do with low sales, but he’s going on tour and working on new music regardless of its success.

Either way, Lil Yachty and his alter egos have undoubtedly made a name for themselves in the genre, whether they’re loved or hated; there are plenty who do both.

Brittany Sodic, University of North Texas

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Brittany sodic, university of north texas journalism - digital & print.

[…] To view the featured image click here To view the above image click here […]

[…] sides of the same coins, alternative personas of the same man. Yachty himself has stated that his alter-ego Boat is “crazy”, a fact we can see in how wildly different and more aggressive the lyricism is […]

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About That Yacht Life: How Teen Rapper Lil Yachty Made It Big

Meet the 18-year-old Atlanta rapper and Yeezy model making waves.

It was 3 p.m. on a Wednesday in New York, and the 18-year-old rapper Miles Parks McCollum, known to everyone as Lil Yachty, could not stop yawning. His bedazzled grill caught the overhead light of a Chinatown hotel room with each Wookie-like yawp; beneath his beaded red braids, it was almost impossible to tell whether or not his eyes were open.

His voice, which had the hypnotic drawl of a Novocaine-induced stupor, only reinforced the appearance of sleepiness. Only when the subject of Supreme surfaced did he perk up: “It went from me going in there to shop, to them playing my music now,” he declared. His friend Chalis, who came up with Yachty in Atlanta, reminded him that they once saw Joe Jonas in the store. Everyone in the room, including other core members of the “Sailing Team”—producer “Burberry Perry” and “Bloody Osiris,” plus Yachty’s manager, who goes by “ Coach K “—busted out laughing.

“I forgot we seen him,” Yachty recalled with a smirk.

Yachty, who came to seemingly everyone’s attention when he modeled in Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 3 show, wore a velvet Supreme sweat suit and Gucci slide sandals. On his neck hung a sizable diamond-encrusted gold medallion with the letters “QC,” which stand for Quality Control. Having only started making music a year ago, this is apparently the prize for going from no one to someone, boy to man, boat to yacht.

Lil Yachty, Perry, Chalis, and Osiris

“In high school, there was a group of older kids who called themselves the ‘Yacht Club,’” Yachty said of his stage name. “I was trying to get in the club.” They eventually let him in, but he had to start from the bottom as Lil Boat, which has since become his alter-ego. “They’re the same person,” Yachty continued. “Same soul. Same body. But one is more calm and the other is more aggressive.”

Chalis, who is two years older, was one of the charter members of the Yacht Club. “We were starting waves,” he said. “We used to record in my closet in Atlanta. We had a bum-ass mic and we put a sock on it. We had nothing.” After graduating, Chalis sailed off to New York. Once he was installed there, Yachty sent him a list of kids he followed on Instagram for Chalis to befriend. The advance team set the table for last summer, when Yachty arrived in town to stay with Chalis; together, they broke onto the scene, successfully networking with the likes of Ian Connor and Eileen Kelly .

“I just thought I’d give it a shot,” said Yachty. “I just wanted to get cool.” He shrugged and then paused, as if his rapid success had finally just hit him. “I was just in a dorm room. I was at Alabama State—I was literally just there !”

Last week, Yachty attracted a crowd so large at his VFiles show that the police had to barricade the street. He then went on to perform at the Museum of Modern Art, followed by a show in Philadelphia with Young Thug. On Tuesday, he released his music video for “ 1 Night ,” which is quickly making its rounds on the Internet for its meme-friendly visuals. “He’s one of the most focused young guys I’ve ever met,” said Coach K, who’s worked with stars like Young Jeezy, Migos, and Gucci Mane. “He’s going to be really big .”

When he’s onstage, Yachty comes to life. In one clip of a performance posted to his Instagram, he jumps up and down so energetically that his sweatpants practically fall off. His hair thwacks his face in sync with the beat. He dives into the audience. He is buoyant, like, well, a yacht.

Yeezy Season 3 at Madison Square Garden. Photo by Getty Images.

“He’s got a lot of little white boy fans,” Osiris said of the usual crowd.

“Like lemme-get-a-pic-for-the-gram !” Burberry Perry chimed in.

Music is something that Yachty simply tried, and found that he had a knack for it. “Growing up, my dad used to play India Arie, Coldplay, and Paul McCartney ,” he recalled. His father, Shannon McCollum , is a photographer who’s worked with everyone from Outkast to Dead Prez, so maybe the spotlight is the beam by which Yachty was meant to chart his route. His raps, which have the same hazy quality of his speaking voice and are infused with nonchalant humor, have little to do with the trap artists—like Migos, Young Thug, Young Jeezy, and Future—that came before him in Atlanta. In fact, Yachty claimed he’s not interested in the genre; instead, he described his sound as “colorful” and “soft.”

Meet Lil Yachty, the Teen Rapper Making Waves

Louis Vuitton shirt, $850, louisvuitton.com ; Dries Van Noten tank top, $140, barneys.com ; Ami trousers, $355, amiparis.fr .

Raf Simons v-neck knit, $1,700, rafsimons.com ; Theory T-shirt, $75, theory.com ; Ami trousers, $355, amiparis.fr ; Converse sneakers, $55, converse.com ; Lil Yachty’s own jewelry.

Louis Vuitton shirt, $850, louisvuitton.com ; Dries Van Noten tank top, $140, barneys.com ; Lil Yachty’s own jewelry.

Prada shirt, $710, and sweater, $930, prada.com ; Ami pants, $350, amiparis.fr ; Falke socks, $28, sockhopny.com ; Louis Vuitton sneakers, $785, louisvuitton.com ; Lil Yachty’s own jewelry.

“When you think of trap, it’s like hard, gutter stuff,” explained Chalis, whose job description seems to be happily filling in Yachty’s long silences. “But we’re young kids; we’re not like that. Obviously, we love trap and are influenced by where we come from, but Yachty is fun. His voice is angelic! A lot of rap you can’t relate to, but Yachty is young. Not even a year ago he was a regular civilian.”

While Yachty claimed the only music he listens to is his own, his friends name-dropped people like Lil Uzi Vert , who is 21. “Why so many Lil’s?” I asked.

“It’s because everyone wants to be a kid again,” explained Osiris.

I turned to Yachty and asked him what else he might hope to accomplish next. He stretched out his arms and yawned deeply, and then mumbled something in his drowsy baritone.

“You want to what?” I asked.

Yachty stuck his hand down his Nautica boxer shorts and closed his eyes: “I just want to be mainstream.”

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Lil Yachty Is Out to Claim What He Rightfully Deserves Ahead of Lil Boat 3 Album

Respect My Conglomerate Four years in the school of hard knocks has taught Lil Yachty that credit isn’t always given where it’s due. Now the Atlanta rapper is out to claim what he rightfully deserves. Words: Georgette Cline Editor’s Note: This story originally appeared in the Spring 2020 issue of XXL Magazine, on stands now.

Based on the quarter-sized 10.5 carat diamond sailboat earrings dangling from Lil Yachty ’s ears on this February morning in New York City, diamonds aren’t just a girl’s best friend. The $98,000 jewelry the Atlanta rapper copped from jeweler Wafi is certainly on brand for Yachty, who is at a yoga studio around the corner from the Big Apple’s famed Diamond District. But today, instead of dropping racks on racks on racks on another iced-out chain or bracelet, Yachty is sweating his ass off down the street. He’s inside an 80-degree heated room at AtthenaYoga learning how to be a yogi.

“I feel like I’m begging for mercy,” the 22-year-old artist exclaims while he’s positioned on a red (his favorite color) mat with his arms out in front of him on the floor, head down and legs tucked under his body. Atthena Breitton, his instructor for the private class, informs Yachty, dressed in black Nike Pro workout gear, that she’ll be getting him into “a lot of fun shapes that are different.”

The “One Night” rhymer’s commentary as he goes from sinking his belly (“You giving me arch lessons right now”) to engaging his core while lifting his knees (“I’m shaking, what the fuck?”) to trying a plank pose (“This some punishment shit”) is comical, yet endearing. Don’t underestimate Lil Boat’s abilities. For a guy who eats pizza daily and never consumes fruits or vegetables, hot yoga is pushing himself to the limit, but he’s holding it down. “You’re pulling me apart like pizza dough,” says Yachty, a fitting response as he likens his favorite food to Breitton maneuvering his limbs into yoga poses.

Downward-Facing Dog is up next. “Think of a dog making a little mountain pose with its body,” instructs Breitton. “Why would a dog do that?” Yachty utters, seemingly irked at the thought. The groans grow louder, the poses get more technical and the heat is stifling. “Are you stressed about your upcoming album?” the instructor inquires, to which Yachty can’t even concentrate to give a valid response. “I don’t know right now,” he replies. “It’s a lot.”

Two hours later after picking up $12,000 worth of Jean Paul Gaultier, Yohji Yamamoto and Walter Van Beirendonck clothing at Middleman Instagram boutique, Yachty is seated inside the lounge area at Capital Records Midtown Manhattan offices. Domino’s pizza, assistant Maddy, videographer Ari and manager Kevin “Coach K” Lee, cofounder of Quality Control Music to which Yachty is signed, surround him. He’s no longer sweaty from his hot yoga adventure, and confesses it did nothing to relax him.

Yachty’s about to play “Oprah’s Bank Account” featuring Drake and DaBaby , the official first single from his upcoming fourth studio album, Lil Boat 3 , due this spring. The project’s cover will feature a black-and-white photo of a 2-year-old little Yachty that his father snapped. The album is scheduled to officially culminate the LB series.

Four years ago, Yachty, born Miles McCollum, was an 18-year-old neophyte just entering the rap game with his debut mixtape, Lil Boat . He crafted colorful, convivial bops like his platinum-selling “One Night” and gold-certified “Minnesota,” became a poster child for mumble rap—though he’ll argue against the designation when applied to him—introduced the masses to the motley crew known as the Sailing Team and reigned as the “King of Teens” with his succinct, monotonous delivery and straight-edge tendencies. Whether it was online, in a Sprite commercial or a Target ad on TV, his signature red hair and beaded braids were seemingly everywhere.

And the music kept flooding in, as constant as the crimson on his head. 2016 also welcomed Yachty’s Summer Songs 2 mixtape , plus projects Big Boat and The Lost Files with Digital Nas . The following year ushered in his debut album, Teenage Emotions , Yachty’s earnest attempt at a commercial project and highest-charting effort, coming in at No. 5 on the Billboard 200. In 2018, he was busy with his sophomore LP, Lil Boat 2 , the Birthday Mix 3.0 , his stellar writing credits on City Girls’ platinum-selling, Earl on the Beat-produced banger “Act Up” and his Nuthin’ 2 Prove opus, the latter of which kicked off with the minacious ode “Gimmie My Respect”: “Niggas gon’ keep forgetting about who goddamn started this muhfuckin’ new wave shit, bruh/Come on, man, gimme my respect, bitch.”

Despite the work put in and the accolades, there are still people that think Lil Yachty can’t rap. His personal statement for the last two years has been apparent across social media: he’s been vocal about his ability to out-rap 75 percent of the new generation, feels slept-on but has nothing to prove. For his own benefit, last year, he took a step back from the spotlight and releasing music except for the SoundCloud freestyle “Go Krazy, Go Stupid” and his collaborative work on the Quality Control: Control the Streets, Vol. 2 compilation. Caliginous Boat, as he describes himself, was in full effect. “I didn’t put any music out,” recalls Yachty, who cites Lil B, Kid Cudi, Soulja Boy and Kanye West as artists who made him want to rap on the come up while Coldplay is his favorite band. “I just was real low-key. So, it’s just like being real low-key, just under the radar, you know what I mean? That’s what I meant by that.” Like a senior in high school preparing to head into his first year of college, Yachty hunkered down.

The last year was the longest stretch of time he’s gone without dropping consistent music, an occurrence he promises won’t happen again. Relevancy is key. Though time spent out of the public eye didn’t mean he was sitting idle. For roughly two years, Yachty was perfecting Lil Boat 3 , an album he recorded four times over before submitting the final effort to the label in early 2020. “I kept going through so many different phases of creativity,” Yachty admits. Black Hair Boat being one of them. Gone is the bright-red head full of hair he was once synonymous with; now bloodshot tips are all that remain.

The new ’do is reflective of taking it back to the basics. No so-called gimmicks, so the focus is strictly on the bars. His recent feature run is indicative of this: Sada Baby’s 30 Roc-produced “SB5,” Duke Deuce’s “Crunk Ain’t Dead Mob” with Lil Thad, Tadoe’s “Get It Bussin” and “Speed Me Up” with Wiz Khalifa, Ty Dolla $ign and Sueco The Child, to name a few. Each track reflects Yachty’s punchy brand of lyrical wizardry, clever couplets included.

“Give me my credit,” demands Yachty, referring to both his rhymes and his ’fits. “I feel like I’m slept-on in general, just period. I’m not saying I’m the best, you know, I never can say I’m the best rapper, or even if I was best-dressed. But I do this shit. For real. It don’t break me. I’m still here… That’s ’cause I’m really a fly nigga. I don’t get enough credit for it. I feel like I’m one of the best-dressed rappers in the rap game. And no one gives me any credit. And it upsets me. Not even upsetting, but it upsets me. It’s like, yeah, y’all just playing with me right now. I don’t have no stylist for real.”

As he leans back on the couch in the Capitol Records lounge, (Capitol is QC’s parent company) dressed in a vintage hunter green and mustard Nike letterman jacket decorated with The Beverly Hillbillies logo, vintage Evisu denim jeans stitched with dice, chocolate brown Air Force 2s and a green-and-white trucker hat, it’s clear Yachty’s style is fresh, but his new music is what’s on the agenda right now. Yachty’s new single “Oprah’s Bank Account,” produced by his childhood friend Earl on the Beat, is bittersweet as it signals the beginning of the end of the Lil Boat series. Once Yachty presses play on the melodic, uptempo track, it’s apparent how the song got its title. “Diamond in the rough, you look as good as Oprah’s bank account,” he raps.

Drake hopped on the beat after Yachty previewed the song on his Finsta page (Boat's secondary private Instagram account) late last year. DaBaby linked with Lil Boat in an Atlanta studio last October to add his signature sound. “It was fire,” Earl on the Beat remembers of DaBaby’s studio session. “They got in. We were there, we was chillin’. DaBaby came in, he was cool. Had a blunt. The blunt started going, started recording.”

According to Earl, he has roughly nine songs he produced on Yachty’s new album, which will feature throwback 2016 melodies the rapper built his career on. Overall, Yachty describes Lil Boat 3 as an uptempo experience featuring further production from Pi’erre Bourne, 30 Roc and MitchGoneMad. “I just hope it provides good tunes for the youth,” Yachty says. After the album's spring release, Yachty already has another project lined up to release around his birthday, Aug. 23. “ End of the Summer ,” he reveals of the tentative title. “And just make it a summer feel.” And then there’s a string of collab projects he has hopes for with three producers he knows all too well: 30 Roc, Earl and Pi’erre, the latter of whom Yachty would like to join forces with as an artist, too. “I’m a big fan of his music,” Yachty affirms.

2020 isn’t just solely about witnessing Lil Yachty on the mic either. He’s got goals outside the booth. “I love acting,” he admits. “It’s really cool.” With six official projects ranging from mixtapes to albums currently under his belt, Yachty sees a future in which he graduates from hip-hop. “I don’t plan on being a rapper forever.” He’s already landed roles as the voice of Green Lantern in the 2018 animated film Teen Titans! Go to the Movies and the 2019 comedy How High 2 , in which he plays a teen stoner named Roger who discovers a secret strain of weed. Now he has two more movies and a spot in a television show on the way; one of the three is based on his life story. He’s hush on any further details. Yachty’s dream role? To play a killer similar to the character Rico in Paid in Full . Rappers-turned-actors like Will Smith also inspire him and prove making the jump to a successful acting career is possible.

Watching Yachty land TV and movie gigs in real time motivates Earl, who’s known the Grammy Award-nominated artist since they were 7 years old growing up in ATL. “This nigga’s a star,” Earl maintains. “When you see somebody that you actually grew up with, that you actually go to school with, that you actually be doing day to day shit with go and do this shit... you just be like, damn, that’s fire. And you get inspired. Man, my nigga is a businessman, bro. This nigga is a jack of all trades. This nigga really do this shit.”

Coach K has also seen Yachty’s progression firsthand, having signed the rapper at the age of 18, shortly after Yachty left Alabama State University, where he attended for two months. “It’s crazy, we signed Yachty in 2016,” Coach K reflects. “In school, it’s like four years of high school and then you graduate and go to college. This last year, he’s taking the time, it’s like his senior year in high school. And it’s like he’s been preparing himself to get ready for college, you know? When you get ready to go to college, it’s like you’re on your own, a lot of things start changing, you’re kinda in between from here to there. I think it’s when he took this year out, you know, in really just discovering [himself]. There’s a lot of things he did in the film industry and now I think that’s what brung everything back to completion. We worked this [ Lil Boat 3 ] album for the last year-and-a-half. I’ve seen him turn me in four albums… You never want to get in the way of the artist and their process… I think it’s in those four years, he’s had time to grow up and figure out who he is. He was the ‘King of the Teens’ when we first signed him, he’s still young as hell, you know? It’s that transition. He’s come into himself.”

And moved up in tax brackets, too. Just three years shy of hitting 25, Lil Yachty is a self-proclaimed millionaire. Buying a $400 Denim Tears Black Jesus blanket as he randomly scrolls through Instagram is as standard as eating pizza every day. In Yachty’s world, both are the norm. More money may bring more problems depending on who you ask, but when you’ve been able to keep the same circle of friends since kindergarten like Yachty has, life is good. His reality will be even better once Lil Boat 3 arrives. “It’s a heavy-hitting album,” he promises. “I’m ready to drop. My god. I want to put it out so bad.” Coach K believes this project will further solidify Lil Yachty as not only a trendsetter who breaks barriers, but an artist deserving of his credit. “I’ma get my respect before I’m done,” Yachty adds. “I’ma get it.”

See Exclusive Photos From Lil Yachty's XXL Magazine Spring Issue 

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Lil Yachty Hits A Major Milestone With His ‘Lil Boat’ Series

Lil Yachty has reached a new high as two of his albums have exceeded half a million each in sales units.

On Friday (March 8), the Recording Industry Association of America certified the rapper and singer’s 2016 debut Lil Boat and its 2018 sequel Lil Boat 2 gold.

This accolade by the trade organization honors 500,000 album sales or equivalent units, which both packages have surpassed separately since their releases via Quality Control and Motown Records.

The original  Lil Boat put the Atlanta artist on the map. Its follow-up two years later debuted at No. 2 on the US Billboard chart, marking him as a full-fledged star.

Yachty isn’t the only artist to get RIAA hardware recently. Last month, SZA  got seven new gold and platinum certifications for songs released as part of 2022’s SOS .

“Open Arms” featuring Travis Scott , “Seek & Destroy” and Ghost In The Machine” featuring Phoebe Bridgers all reached platinum status for the first time (meaning each cut sold over 1,000,000 units), whereas “I Hate U” and “Snooze” went three and four times platinum respectively. Most notably, “Good Days” attained 6x platinum status.

Additionally, “Conceited” has been certified gold, with 500,000 units sold.

Prior to that, Twista’s classic “Slow Jamz” finally achieved platinum certification , just a few days after its 20th anniversary. The track was officially honored with the award in late January.

On the same day, “Overnight Celebrity” and Kamikaze also went double platinum as well. The latter went platinum the first time back in 2004, soon after its release.

Twista has been a staple within the Hip Hop community for the best part of 35 years. Speeding out the gate in the early ’90s with his mesmerizing, rapid-fire flow — which in 1992 earned him the title of World’s Fastest Rapper, according to the Guinness Book of World Records — he took the underground by storm before kicking things into overdrive, thanks to his show-stealing guest verse on Do Or Die ‘s 1996 Rap-A-Lot Records classic “Po Pimp.”

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This breakthrough set the scene for the success that would come with the Chicago rapper’s platinum-selling third studio album, Adrenaline Rush . By his own admission, the 1997 LP established him as “a real rapper” and helped validate rappers from his hometown.

“It meant you had to accept that artists from Chicago could spit,” he told HipHopDX .

Despite the accolades that came at the hands of Adrenaline Rush , it was his 2004 album Kamikaze that catapulted Twista into a whole other stratosphere — and probably a whole new tax bracket, too.

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Why Lil Yachty Says It’s Time to ‘Wake Everybody Up’

After laying relatively low in 2019, the Sailing Team's captain returns with a massive chip on his shoulder to put a bow on his momentous Lil Boat series.

By Michael Saponara

Michael Saponara

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Lil Yachty is coming for his respect. After not releasing any projects and remaining relatively quiet in 2019, the Sailing Team’s captain returned in May with a massive chip on his shoulder, to put a bow on his momentous Lil Boat series with the third and final chapter.

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The series is something the 23-year-old holds near and dear to his heart, as it served as his introduction to rap’s mainstream and put him on the map just a year after graduating high school. With the stakes raised at a pivotal point in his career, Yachty went back to the drawing board five times wiping the slate clean until he found the desired patina for LB3 to take shape.

On the set, Boat blends melodic bubblegum trap that sounds as if there’s something lodged in his throat and the loopy rhymes of vintage Yachty, alongside a myriad of special guests to execute the project’s vision. The rapper also notches three co-production credits on the album as well.

Yachty has remained low-key inside his ATL mansion for much of the quarantine. He’s dabbled in his fair share of playing video games, recording new music, continuing his kids’ menu diet of waffles, pizza, and chicken nuggets — which he combats with some yoga and hitting the gym to balance “eating like an eight-year-old and trying to be healthy at the same time.”

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Following the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis Police on Memorial Day, the ensuing protests setting the city ablaze saw Yachty’s infectious “Minnesota” hook take on a new meaning. “You need to stay up out them streets if you can’t take the heat,” he raps on the icy 2015 track.

After collecting his thoughts for a couple of days and even debating making the trip to Minneapolis himself on LB3 release day, Yachty took action by donating $3,000 to the Minnesota Freedom Fund, and joined protestors (May 30) on the frontlines walking the streets of Downtown ATL. Yachty showed maturity and leadership beyond his years when getting on the megaphone to  deliver a powerful speech. “We gotta stand for something or fall for anything,” he proclaimed.

Dive into our interview with Yachty below, as he debates an artist’s responsibility to comment on social issues, always hearing the haters no matter what he does, how Drake ended up on “Oprah’s Bank Account,” and more.

Billboard: Wrapping up with Lil Boat 3 , what does the series mean to you?

Lil Yachty: It’s just where I started my music career. It will always have a special place in my heart. It’s what brought me into music. It will always be a very important project — both the first and the last one. I think they play a pivotal role, with the first one being my introduction and this third one being a stamp to remind people that I really do this s–t.

Your last album was Nuthin 2 Prove , but now it’s “ComebackSZN Boat” time with your Twitter name. Do you feel like you’ve got a chip on your shoulder with this project that you’re still right here?

[A] big chip. I feel like I took a long break and it’s time to wake everybody up.

You kicked off LB3′ s rollout with “Oprah’s Bank Account.” What did you think of the fans’ reception to it?

I think it was a good reception, but at the same time, a lot of people were upset — black people specifically — with the whole man in a dress thing, but it wasn’t that deep.

How did you get Drake on there? Did you guys talk about how that song ended up being the one that Drizzy broke the record with for most Hot 100 placements?

Drake actually asked me to be on there. I met Baby when he was doing a meet-n-greet and I hung out with him. [Drake] thanked me for it. I told him, “No need to thank me, sir. You did all the work.”

How did you end up linking with Tyler, Rocky, and Tierra Whack on “T.D.” and why did you sample that Tokyo Drift song?

Originally, that song was supposed to be me, Rocky, and [A$AP] Ferg. I guess Rocky played his verse for Tyler and then Tyler was like, “Oh, I’m getting on this.” Then I was like, “I know somebody that would kill everybody [on this].” So I reached out to Tierra Whack because she’s a really good friend of mine, and I really wanted her to have that look. I knew she was going to go crazy, which she did. I just love that song by the Teriyaki Boyz.

What was your role in the co-production of the three tracks you produced on the album?

I picked the sample for “Tokyo Drift.” For “Can’t Go,” I made the melody. For “Wock in Stock,” I did the 808s. It’s a difficult process.

Talk to me about “Till the Morning” with Durk and Thugger.

We’ve been sitting on that record for a very long time. I want to say it dates back to at least 2018. We just wanted to see who was going to drop it first. Yeah, we had all did it together. Durk is that n—a. He’s dumb-chill and humble.

The Boat Show has let fans into your life during quarantine. We see you eating waffles, pizza, chicken nuggets, hitting the gym, and doing some yoga.

I don’t know, I guess that’s a twist between eating like an eight-year-old and trying to be healthy at the same time.

I’ve been on the Mountain Dew Baja Blast wave. Are you a Baja Blast guy?

I f–k with the Baja Blast heavy. I like to go to Taco Bell and get it. It’s crazy, I’m a snack connoisseur.

Have you been playing a lot of Warzone as well?

I just got my first win with Tee Grizzley like two days ago. That game, I love it, but the Warzone ain’t easy. I’m a beast online — like Team Deathmatch. You got to move different on Search and Destroy.

I enjoyed your “Can You Stand The Rain” New Edition cover, but some people were hating on it.

People hate on me regardless, bro. It’s just a given. I’ll never be the most likable artist. I did that in 2017, bro. One night, it was like five in the morning, I was on IG Live with fans and I dropped it.

You still gotta keep the confidence up, though.

Oh, I’m that n—a.

How are you still keeping up with the shopping?

Bro, I shop every single day.

Are the stores coming to your place?

That and I do a lot of Grailed and eBay shopping. I had to change my username because it was too obvious at first. I’m on my ’85 collection right now. I’m trying to collect all of the 1985 Jordan’s. I got about eight right now, it’s just so expensive.

With the riots going on across the country in response to the death of George Floyd at the hands of police, do you feel artists have a responsibility to speak out?

I feel like this is a tricky conversation. Some people generally don’t want to say something that would upset people, while other people are just minding their own business. It should resonate more if you’re a black man. It’s just difficult.

I’m not fuckin with what’s goin on in Minnesota, thinking bout flyin out there and walkin the streets with the people… what celebrity will meet me there? Dead ass — concrete boy boat (@lilyachty) May 29, 2020

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With his debut mixtape, ‘Lil Boat,’ Lil Yachty fully shed the mumble rap label, transitioning from SoundCloud sensation to major label star.

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Lil Yachty’s debut mixtape, Lil Boat , is one of the pre-eminent releases of the SoundCloud era. Released on March 9, 2016, it made Lil Yachty a star, spawned multiple hits, and further legitimized the DIY-style rap that emerged at the beginning of the decade.

The Atlanta MC entered the crowded rapper-singer fray with a work that’s split into two distinct sides, seeing him grapple with dueling elements of his personality and career. The first half of Lil Boat sees Yachty flex his flow, while the second half finds him crooning in AutoTune. That may be a slightly reductive way to look at the collection (in reality, he does both throughout), but there’s certainly a kind of TI vs TIP split-personality concept to the whole affair. Yachty uses his style to demarcate who is who, and, despite his glee throughout, Lil Boat is a surprisingly subtle work for the chaotic time it represents.

Listen to the best of Lil Yachty on Apple Music and Spotify.

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A standout work.

Yachty’s debut mixtape is a standout work for the usual reasons – great name, great cover, and two singles that will forever be associated with Yachty and the era from which he emerged: “One Night” and “Minnesota.”

As a title, Lil Boat was perfect. Serving two purposes at once, it created a fitting alt.moniker for the MC while helping a lot of people to pronounce his name (did you actually say it like “yacht”?). Nautical luxury isn’t the most commonly-evoked lifestyle in hip-hop (outside of Puffy), so that theme alone was enough to put Yachty in his own lane. And then there’s the artwork: not a yacht, barely even a boat; it’s basically a little wooden dinghy. Beautifully composed, the image looks like a classical painting, bordered in a red that matches Yachty’s hair. It’s almost Americana in tone – though Yachty’s music is anything but.

All hail “King Of The Youth”

Yachty may be poised and confident on that cover, but he’s also lost in the gloom at sea – an apt metaphor for the musical style he was leading. While not traditional in any sense, Yachty is honest with his emotions in a way that younger generations have always been, and Lil Boat found him attempting to navigate his way through the emotionally turbulent years of his late youth. Shortly after his breakout, Yachty would declare himself “King Of Teens” or, alternatively, “King Of The Youth.” This might have sounded ridiculous to adults who weren’t even sure how to pronounce his name, but those adults were no longer in charge. Lil Yachty was not part of some hip-hop assembly line; like other DIY pioneers before him, Yachty and his crew were making these songs at home, often in a matter of minutes.

Outside of the Vikings football team and Ice Cube ’s “What Can I Do?,” Minnesota doesn’t get name-checked very often in hip-hop. Simply naming a track after a state was seemingly in line with the aforementioned “half-Americana, half trolling” theme of Lil Boat – but, of course, the song isn’t actually about Minnesota. It’s more of a celebration of Lil Yachty’s arrival on the scene. The draw and significance of having both Quavo and Young Thug on a song in 2016 is hard to overstate, and their guest appearances turned “Minnesota” into a certified-gold hit. At the time, Quavo was just months away from releasing “Bad And Boujee,” while Thug was fresh off Barter 6 and in the middle of his Slime Season run. Together, he and Yachty appeared at Kanye West’s Yeezy Season 3 fashion show, on February 11, where The Life Of Pablo received its public unveiling. Just two days after releasing his debut mixtape, Yachty was at the epicenter of one of hip-hop’s biggest cultural shifts.

Unprecedented moves

Lil Boat was big enough that Burberry Perry – Yachty’s right-hand man at the time and the producer behind most of the mixtape – came under pressure from the fashion label Burberry and was forced to change his name. That wasn’t exactly an unprecedented move, but the speed with which it happened certainly was. It’s not often that an internationally renowned fashion house serves a cease-and-desist to a kid who got famous on the internet and was barely old enough to vote.

Perry’s production on Lil Boat ’s lead single, “One Night’ (Yachty’s best-known song to date), guided the way for the rest of the collection. Even the beats he didn’t produce fall right in line, all cascading bells, and whistles alongside keys that let you hear Yachty’s grin throughout.

Lil Yachty’s emergence closely resembles that of the Odd Future collective, who, years earlier, more or less launched DIY rap on the internet (depending on how you view Lil B’s rise to fame). Seemingly overnight, Yachty was partnering with Urban Outfitters and the aptly titled Nautica clothing brand. His rapid ascent would have sounded like fan fiction just a few years earlier but, after his breakout, many artists began following his path to fame on a regular basis.

Having hit it big in such a short space of time, Yachty wasn’t about to slow down. He went on to guest (and absolutely steal the show) on “Broccoli,” a DRAM song with a Yachty-perfect beat. As one of the stars in Quality Control ’s shining roster, Yachty was operating alongside some of the biggest acts in hip-hop. With Lil Boat, he fully shed the “mumble rap” label, completing the transition from SoundCloud sensation to major label star.

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How Lil Yachty Got His Second Act

By Jeff Ihaza

Until the pandemic, Lil Yachty never stopped to think about how quickly he became famous. “It was a full year from walking across the stage in high school to then I’m in this penthouse in midtown Atlanta , I got this G-wagon, put my mother in a house,” Yachty explains. “It’s a fast life. You not ever getting the chance to think about a lot of shit.”

Yachty’s 2016 hit “Minnesota,” which had the treacly energy of a nursery rhyme, earned the then-17-year-old the title “King of the Teens.” But since then, he’s become an elder statesman of a certain brand of young superstar — and something like the Gen Z answer to Diddy. He collaborated with brands like Nautica and Target; he appeared in the movie How High 2 ; he signed an endorsement deal with Sprite. Signees to his new label imprint, Concrete Boys, even get an iced-out chain.

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Born Miles Parks McCollum, Yachty embodies many of the ways the music industry has changed in the past decade. He rose to fame on the internet and commands attention with or without new music. Over Zoom in March, he’s calm and reserved, pausing intently before he responds to questions. The youthful exuberance is still there, though. At one point, his mom, who lives nearby, calls to ask what he wants from the grocery store. “I need Pop-Tarts,” he says sweetly. “I really want them cinnamon-bun Pop-Tarts.”

He can afford lots of Pop-Tarts. Yachty reportedly made $13 million on endorsements in 2016 and 2017. (“Work hard, play hard,” he responds when asked about the number.) He spends more than $50,000 a month on various expenses, according to one recent headline. (“If anything I pay a little more. I have many assets and insurance, plus an elaborate payroll.”) He’s working on a Reese’s Puffs cereal collaboration, a film based on the card game Uno, and he was one of the first rappers to hop on the crypto craze, selling something called a “YachtyCoin” last December in an auction on the platform Nifty Gateway. According to a report from Coinbase, the token sold for $16,050. Yachty explains that when he was first discovered by Quality Control records founder Kevin “Coach K” Lee, “one of the biggest things he talked about was being a brand. Being bigger than just an artist — being a mogul.” 

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In fact, collaboration has come to be a useful tool for Yachty as he sheds the King of the Teens title for something more akin to a rap mogul. “I only work with people I have friendships with, who I really admire,” Yachty says. “And I love working with newer artists, up-and-coming artists.”  Within the world of hip-hop, Yachty has found for himself somewhere between a megastar and internet hero, and it would appear that he’s just settling in. “I just fuck with new talent. Not even like, ‘let me sign you, get under my wing,’ ” he explains. “Just ‘hey, I’ve been in this spot before. I know what that’s like, bada bing, bada boom.’ ”

Yachty started Concrete Boys last year. One of the first signees was his childhood friend Draft Day, who offers one of the more exciting features on Lil Boat 3, on the cut “Demon Time.” “I feel old sometimes,” Yachty admits. “I feel old as fuck when someone’s popping and I don’t know who they are. Which is rare, because I be on my shit.”

Yachty is also at the forefront of a new realm of social platforms, namely Twitch and Discord, that engender more direct communication within communities. Yachty frequently talks directly to fans on both platforms, and in April he collaborated with Discord on “sound packs,” which allowed users to replace the app’s normal notifications with sounds he created. 

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I ask Yachty where he sees himself in five years. “Hopefully, a really successful actor,” he responds. “And with a bangin’ eight pack. I’ll probably cut my hair up, maybe a little beard. Real sex-symbol shit, you know what I’m saying?” For Yachty, who opened the door to a new brand of celebrity rapper, it doesn’t register as wishful thinking. His enduring celebrity is proof of what’s possible with a solid flow and internet savvy. “I just want to do everything. Because I’ve realized I can,” Yachty explains. “I’ve learned the power I have. The only thing stopping me is me, for real.”

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Lil Yachty’s concrete chapter is so different, but core remains the same

• By Rashad Milligan
• Nov 09, 2023

Lil Yachty concluded the U.S. leg of his “The Field Trip Tour” in his hometown of Atlanta on Nov. 8 at the Coca-Cola Roxy.

The Concrete Family, a group of artists under Yachty- KARRAHBOOO , CAMO!, dc2trill, and Draft Day — opened the night as each artist performed a couple of songs. KARRAHBOOO brought out Anycia to perform the bonus song of the opening set, which was “Splash Bros,” a track released while KARRAHBOOO was on tour and the song with the most views she’s received on YouTube at 432,000.

CAMO! hosted the opening set, and Draft Day had another stand-out moment from the set by performing “Demon Time,” a popular track off Yachty’s 2020 album Lil Boat 3 .

The group then concluded by performing The Concrete Cypher from “On The Radar Radio.”

Yachty then hit the stage and performed songs off his experimental album Let’s Start Here .

The project was left field from anything Yachty has previously done and incorporated a mix of soul, funk, and rock and roll. The crowd roared and bobbed their heads to the first part of Yachty’s set before he left and let his all-Black female band rock out to a cover of Phil Collins’s “In The Air Tonight.”

He then returned to the stage to celebrate the side of him that gave him his current platform. He opened the next part of his set with “SOLO STEPPIN CRETE BOY” before efficiently running down seven years’ worth of his most popular rap songs. Rap or rock, Yachty showed the audience his growth from the days of receiving millions of Soundcloud plays as an underground artist also known as Lil Boat, R.D., and Darnell Boat with the red braids. His surprise guest performance was labelmate superstar Lil Baby, who performed “Heyy” and “Freestyle.”

Yachty’s Concrete Era is the artist starting from scratch on almost all fronts. His group of artists were from all over the country, as opposed to his former collective of the Sail Team, comprised of his closest friends he grew up with.

His music from the Sail Team era was mostly turn-up records with no lyrical substance. That era also had its experimental album with 2018’s Teenage Emotions. That experimental project wasn’t received as well as his latest attempt. In this latest era, Yachty’s primary producer is MitchGoneMad, also his co-host on the podcast “A Safe Place.” In attendance were notable acquaintances of Yachty’s career through all eras, including Based Savage and Baylen Levine.

The latest cast prominently featured around Yachty may appear different. However, at the base, it’s still a group of long-time collaborators and trusted colleagues with the same tangible goal of putting out the best possible product for Yachty. It’s simply a true evolution of a person and artist, and the main reason he is still relevant within the hip-hop space eight years after older rappers complained about his Internet “mumble rap” run not lasting longer than three years.

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Who the Hell is Lil Yachty, and Why Do Kanye West and Drake Care About Him?

The Atlanta rapper just released his new mixtape "Lil Boat," and is the newest, hippest oddball from his city's hip-hop scene making headlines.

Kanye West brought a lot of musicians into his extended circle on his February still-unfinished album The Life of Pablo and also, at the Yeezy Season 3 event when he debuted it. A few of the figures have been rappers specializing in Atlanta-flavored trap music; most notably, rising icon of the genre Young Thug appears on TLOP ’s “Highlights” and played model in the Yeezy presentation at NYC’s Madison Square Garden . But there are also the more nationally anonymous, up-and-coming figures: the distinctly Future-styled Desiigner from Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, sampled on “Father Stretch My Hands Part 2,” and rising ATLien Lil Yachty , who just appeared for dramatic effect in the Yeezy fashion show.

Both artists are musical personalities to which one might rightfully give the side eye. Yachty, in particular, comes as part of a long and increasingly exhausting tradition of young Atlanta rappers who have adopted detuned crooning, Autotune chemtrail effects and Migos-style flows as a baseline for their sounds. Years deep in the trend — post- ILoveMakonnen , mid-Awful Records buzz — the “ATLien” shorthand has begun to feel tired. Atlanta, these days, is a small world where every artist with a trending hit and a pronounced, off-kilter sensibility seems to get a fair shake at the international blog limelight.

But Yachty, who just released his debut mixtape yesterday, didn’t just steal that: He got some of Kanye West’s. He also recieved airtime on Drake’s OVO Radio for one of his odder and most cloying Soundcloud rips “Minnesota.” “It get cold like Minnesota,” Yachty intones ad infinitum in his airy falsetto, over a spooling toy piano riff and Super Mario Bros. sound effects. It’s music that’s easy to hate — “death of rap” music to any traditionalist. Perhaps, though, it’s easier to love, especially if you like dancing that involves only your arms.

Most elaborate, erratic movements, of course, are what have gotten Yachty, and other recent Atlanta rappers, to break through; dance and other viral videos posted and disseminated by youths of the ‘net often give new tracks like Yachty’s veritable hit “1 Night” an important platform. Trails of YouTube and Soundcloud receipts, doubtless, led Kanye and Drake to Yatchy. With breakthrough street rap hits, this kind of grass-roots buzz is fairly typical, and spreads like wildfire.

Yachty’s first full-length statement, Lil Boat , operates under the same principles as his Soundcloud page, evidencing the 18-year-old rapper/singer’s discerning taste for what is cool. Even if Yachty’s own identity is crowded out by the shrewd production, full of shrill timbres and kitschy sound effects, these songs generally hold together well as consummate, broad-scale records. Charmingly, they always sound a bit unfinished. Yachty knows not to wear out the one idea that usually grounds his songs, or when he’s run out of cheeky similes.

Lil Yachty is not an artist anyone wants or needs, and It would be nice to see the styles of a city other than Atlanta be getting some shine, rather than continuing to pore over and debate every new Makonnen-esque act to come out of East Atlanta. Increasingly, this kind of music seems to get away from the genuine spark of inspiration that once made trap music so exciting, even as it attempts to get weirder and push the boundaries of what “rap” can be. Yachty’s song dip often in the realm of gimmick and self-conscious overcuration; fashion and ephemerality feels very on the surface. Check out this video for a new song, slapped with Lil B’s “RARE!” Tag and sampling a sped-up “Bittersweet Symphony”:

Rapping “cool” for “cool”s sake should not be grounds for categorical condemnation, and it’s not as simple as that, either. Yachty’s distinct singing voice, when it’s given some room to breathe on the track, lends the best songs a personal, intimate touch; if nothing else, it beats Post Malone ’s. And it’s a sound we might as well get used to, again; with Yachty definitively on the rise, it doesn’t seem likely that the stream of Atlanta must-hear early-20-somethings will led up anytime soon.

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How Lil Yachty Became Michigan Boy Boat

Before the release of ‘Michigan Boy Boat,’ Lil Yachty sits for an interview about how his collabs with Michigan artists energized him to grow as a rapper.

Photo by Gunner Stahl

Lil Yachty has been spending a lot of time in Michigan lately.

Midway through one low-budget music video for a song called “Flintana,” he shows up in a parking lot with a crew of up-and-coming rappers from Flint: RMC Mike, YN Jay, and Louie Ray. At the beginning of the clip, there’s a disclaimer that says, “This song was made the night before, therefore nobody knew the lyrics,” and everything about it has the raw, spontaneous feeling of a collaboration that came to life on a whim at 2 a.m. In other words, it’s in a completely different universe from the glossy sheen of a song like “Oprah’s Bank Account.”

As Yachty lowers himself on the concrete and does push-ups at the end of Mike’s verse, you can’t help but wonder how the hell he ended up in a random Flint parking lot with a bunch of underground rappers in the first place. But he does such a good job matching the spirit of the song, context doesn’t really matter here. It’s all energy. After a few quick bars about pussy and a mouth full of gold, Yachty circles back with a couple Snoh Aalegra and Kevin Federline references to punctuate his second verse. And when he’s not rapping, he laughs along with punchlines from Mike, Jay, and Ray, hyping up his collaborators. “They have fun,” he says now. “They talk about all kinds of crazy shit.”

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Later, there’s a Lil Yachty sighting at a Detroit studio with Rio Da Yung OG , and he materializes on two more songs with YN Jay. As the year progresses, Yachty’s Michigan collaborations keep popping up online, and each time he tries out self-described “unorthodox” flows, pushing himself to wild new lyrical territory. On all of them, he sounds more energized than we’ve heard him in years. Before long, it’s clear Yachty has become an honorary member of the Michigan rap scene, home to some of the most exciting ( and quotable ) new artists on the planet. 

“They’re mad fucking lyrical in a weird way,” he points out. “The schemes and the cadences and the flows are so unorthodox.”

Yachty says these collaborations have taught him “how to have fun with it” again. He’s having so much fun, in fact, that he decided to make a whole mixtape and call it Michigan Boy Boat . The project will arrive on April 23, and judging by the tags on the announcement Instagram post , it will feature everyone from Veeze to Babyface Ray to Sada Baby to Icewear Vezzo. As Yachty puts it, the project is an opportunity to show love to the scene he’s grown to care about so much.

As the release date nears, the 23-year-old rapper hopped on the phone with Complex to talk about Michigan Boy Boat, three other projects he’s working on, a night in the studio with Freddie Gibbs, and more. The interview, lightly edited for clarity, is below.

How did you first get plugged in with the Michigan rap scene? I’ve always loved Detroit rap. I used to work with Pablo Skywalkin back in 2016. And I always loved Tee Grizzley. “First Day Out” was such an insane song, and I thought he was so lyrical. So I was working with him, and then my best friend Mitch started putting me on to other rappers locally who were on the rise, and I just loved their beats and their rapping schemes. I thought they were so dope. So that’s how I got into it originally.

A lot of people were surprised to see you show up in so many music videos with underground rappers in Flint and Detroit last year. How did the collaborations start happening? I was reaching out to them, bro. I was just coming to them. I wasn’t afraid to show love, and I wanted to work with all of them. So I would just hit them up.

What is it about their music that made you want to work with them? They don’t care. They want to have fun. And it’s funny . They’re mad fucking lyrical in a weird way. The schemes and the cadences and the flows are so unorthodox. And the style of Michigan beats just forced me into this really weird scheme. You’ll see when this mixtape comes out. I just rap really unorthodox on it. A lot of people won’t like it. A lot of people think it’s offbeat.

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Do you think these beats have pushed you to grow as a rapper? Yeah, I learned new schemes and cadences. And I learned to have fun with it. They have fun. They talk about all kinds of crazy shit. 

Michigan Boy Boat is on the way. What made you want to do a full tape with songs like this? I just wanted to show love. That’s it. I just wanted to show love to all of those guys and their talent. And I feel like I rap my best on those types of beats.

You sound really energized lately. I remember a few months ago, you jumped in Cardo’s room on Clubhouse and told everyone how excited you were about a verse you had just written. Yeah. That verse was so fucking crazy. I was sitting on the toilet.

Overall, it seems like you’re having a lot of fun making music right now. Oh, yeah. And I’m about to drop so much shit, it doesn’t make any sense. I’m definitely having fun. 

A couple months ago, you dropped “Hit Bout It” with Kodak Black, which was a crazy moment. What was that experience like?  We didn’t record it in person, but I did take a trip out there to shoot the video. When I recorded the song, I was on my Detroit shit. What happened was, I posted a snippet on my Instagram. And he was originally supposed to do a verse for “Pardon Me.” You know, because he was just pardoned by Donald Trump. Then he was like, “Man, I ain’t going to lie. I really want to get on this.” I was super excited, and we made it happen.

In the behind-the-scenes video, it looked like you guys have a tight bond together. What’s your relationship like, and how did that all go down? I don’t know how or why. It just kinda happened. I hit him when he was in jail, and I wanted to show support and that I was fucking with him. And he would call me every now and then. We’d chop it up and just talk. I think he really supported that and respected that. And when he got out, it was just love.

Speaking of collaborations, you were just tweeting about Freddie Gibbs assembling the Avengers for his next album. Yeah, I was with him last night. I put him on some Detroit shit. [Laughs.]

How did you guys link up? After I tweeted that, he DM’d me, like, “Let’s link.” And I was out here and I pulled right the fuck up.

What was that session like? I was super excited. He’s really fire. He’s like a legend. He was super cool. He’s like a gangster. He was super dope, and he’s older. The session was really chill. I didn’t stay long, unfortunately, because I had to go to a session with Mac DeMarco, so I did the song and left. But it was dope as fuck. He’s funny as shit.

You recently tweeted , “I be sittin back watching y’all assumptions on situations and y’all be so off. The internet just be making up shit.” Do you think people have misconceptions about you at this point? What do people get wrong? Yeah, [some people] think I’m gay as fuck. But I have a beautiful girlfriend. And before her, I had plenty of bitches. You know? So that’s a misconception. But I don’t give a fuck.

You’ve been writing songs for other artists a little lately, like “Act Up” for City Girls, which I think opened some people’s minds to how talented you really are. Is that part of the appeal? I love gaining my respect. 

As a songwriter for other artists, you have to put yourself in someone else’s point of view, and you’ve pulled it off really well so far. Why do you think it’s come naturally for you? Honestly, I was just bored, bro. One day I was in the studio, bored as fuck. And I was like, “Let me see if I can do this.” I did it.

Is that something you want to do more? I’ve done it a few times. I’ve done it. I stopped speaking on it.

I see. I was going to ask if you’d explore that more and ever write songs for pop artists or anything. Yeah, I’ve done some shit. I don’t want to get into it, but I’ve done some shit.

{ "id": 133906885 } “Just listen to the f*cking bars because I promise I’m rapping my f*cking a** off.”

I know you’ve been in the studio with Taz Taylor and the Internet Money guys. Can you talk about that? We’re doing an album. I’m about to go see Taz right now. He’s a fucking king. He’s a fucking GOAT. I have respect for him, 100%.

What have the sessions been like so far? I’ve been in LA three days, and we’ve already made 24 songs. We’re working hard, bro. It’s fun. It’s melodic. It’s fully melodic.

Oh, shit. So a totally different sound from this next Michigan Boy Boat project… Yeah, I got projects, man. I’ve got my project with Internet Money. I’m doing my project with Lil Tecca. I got my project with Working On Dying. And then I’ll start my album fourth quarter of the year.

So there’s lots of shit going on. I’m dropping a shit ton this year.

What made you want to make a bunch of different projects that show all your different styles, instead of just holding off and doing one big album? It didn’t start off that way. It honestly started off with me just fucking with all these guys that I fuck with. And they all love me for different things. Taz, he wanted to bring out my melodic side. You know, with Working On Dying, it’s just all types of heat.

Before you go, I wanted to ask about cryptocurrency. You created your YachtyCoin and then made an NFT. And I know you were an early investor in Dogecoin and SafeMoon and all this shit. How did you get into all of this? Well, my manager put me onto the whole YachtyCoin thing. This year and last year, I just took it and ran with it.

There are stories of people who invested early making ridiculous amounts of money. I know you were early, too. Have you seen crazy profits already? Oh, yeah. Ohhhh yeah . Mm-hmm. 

What should people know before they press play on Michigan Boy Boat when it drops? Just listen to the fucking bars because I promise I’m rapping my fucking ass off.

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Are You on or off Lil Boat?

With the release of Lil Yachty’s debut album, ‘Teenage Emotions,’ two Ringer staffers argue about whether it’s any good and about Yachty’s merits as a rap artist

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By Justin Charity and Micah Peters

Micah Peters : Lil Yachty, self-proclaimed “King of the Teens,” has a new teenage album out Friday called Teenage Emotions. I think it’s an enjoyable 70 minutes of lolling, Seussian, brightly colored, bizarro pop music. Which in short means I think it’s fine. Sometimes even great! And Charity is a salty salted saltlick. And also a hater.

Justin Charity : Yachty called the Notorious B.I.G., who is dead, “overrated.” But he said this in that goo-goo, gah-gah, aw-shucks, Rugrats voice, so I guess that makes him a bushy-tailed champion of positivity or whatever. I’m not the hater here. I’m the reaper.

Teenage Emotions opens with Lil Yachty introducing himself in the style of a stage-play puppeteer, referring to himself in the third person, and stealing Lil Bibby’s whole flow for “DN Freestyle.” This your mans?

Peters: Well, later in Teenage Emotions, on “Priorities,” Yachty repeats, “My priorities are fucked.” And as someone who has spent an embarrassing amount of money on sneakers and then balked at a plane ticket home, I felt it deeply, like, in my bones. In my soul , Charity. Why does everything cost money?

Then again, he also said, “Suck me like an insect,” on the same song, which doesn’t make sense logistically or like, anthropologically, so …

Charity: Ah, money, yes. How much money do you think they had to pay YG, an actually great rapper with a legitimately interesting musical perspective, to shout “I fuck with Lil Yachty” not once, not twice, but three times on “All Around Me”?

Micah, how did we get to this unfortunate point, where a sentient Millennial Personal Brand Starter Kit has released a must-listen rap album?

Peters: Well, a wildly popular SoundCloud song, raucous live shows , and an interesting persona that’s only grown stronger each time he’s made to answer for himself and his entire generation. Which he does, really well, a lot.

Also, no one is saying the Biggie comments weren’t wild out of pocket. But there are also few people who were in pocket at the age of 19.

If I knew everything about Jimi Hendrix, from his favorite mistress down to his preferred brand of sock, would that suddenly make me able to play the guitar with my teeth? There are so many steps between those two things that it is almost as if they have nothing to do with each other.

Yachty’s music itself isn’t really it ; it’s mostly throat-clearing and half-finished thoughts. But it’s fun, the way that stuff usually is. Not much to think about, plenty to enjoy. It misses as often as it hits, but when that Yachty hits  …

Yachty is mostly “good” on the merits of him being game to test out an idea — however dumb — without the smallest hint of shame, and succeed often enough, I find. But like, Charity. Charity. Have you heard “No Hook”? Quavo kinda carries it, but who else do you know that’s used the word “flabbergasted” in conversation , let alone in a rap song?

Anyway, he’s a fun character to root for. Give me a rapper with the brusque simplicity of Migos, the impossible positivity of Lil B, a needless alter ego, a healthy distaste for rules, and I’m pretty much sold.

Charity: You’re giving Lil Yachty way too much credit. Soulja Boy was piloting dumb ideas and hook-first nonsense since Lil Yachty was blowing snot bubbles on plastic cots in Kindercare. (That was 10 years ago, for the record.) Who else do I know who would say “flabbergasted” like that? How about Quavo himself?

Ostensibly, Lil Yachty is a pioneer of teen self-expression. This is despite the fact that Yachty’s depictions of adolescence and his embodiment of such, are generic contrivance. I will pay you $1 million to cite just one distinct instance of Yachty’s teen angst, or whatever, that isn’t just some plug-and-play bullshit. Meanwhile, I will pay Lil Yachty $1 trillion to make a song —  just one song  — that is one-tenth as good or interesting or authentic to adolescent mood as Lil Uzi Vert’s fatalist screed, “XO TOUR Llif3.”

Most pop music is generic. SoundCloud is a wasteland of genre clichés. But most pop music doesn’t ask me to hail cat-rhymes-with-hat Top 40 musicians as idiot savants. Lil Yachty’s music asks me to pretend that I’m dumber than I am. It asks me to be in on a joke that’s not particularly funny or interesting. Hard pass.

I hate his music in general. We should talk about Yachty’s album in particular, though, since it’s his first proper commercial release, and so the stakes for this kid — who has otherwise made his name on a song here, a feature there — are new. What do you make of Teenage Emotions ?

Peters: It’s about as scattershot and goofy and earnest and heartwarming as the cover art suggests, which is to say very. He tumbles headlong into novel, awkward feelings — as teens do — without having the faintest clue what any of them could really mean. Some of the words he uses to talk about them sound borrowed from the conversations of older people. On “Say My Name,” he searches for love, like, real love, you know , the kind that’d still be there even if you weren’t making Target bank . “Better” is similarly obvious: “I love you ’cause you be making me better, you make me feel so much better.” It’s clumsy and funny (even when it could be serious). And juuust endearing enough to grant him partial credit on emotional intelligence. Like Goldie Hawn in The First Wives Club , but without the pinot grigio because Yachty doesn’t drink . ( Get off me I’ve got weird references for days .)

Of course, that goes for the bleeding-heart stuff like his adorable ode to “Momma” on the outro, or the we’re streaking through the quad stuff like “Forever Young.” Which, it’s crazy how this is now the only song ever in all of recorded human history titled “Forever Young,” isn’t it? Almost as crazy as how Kanye just sort of saw Mr. Hudson through a pub window in London and decided he had to have him.

I will say Teenage Emotions isn’t hauling you onboard if you’re still drowning in pretenses. At 19 tracks it’s too long, and there’s a lot of wailing.

But while graceless Auto-Tuned professions are kind of part and parcel of his brand of music, if you want rapping, there’s that too. He holds his own on “Peek a Boo” as well as any other rapper that was not as good as Offset this year. On “X Men” he says you, Charity, one of his haters, are “stinky and dirty like farts,” and I believe him. I am upset, however, that “Other Shit (Interlude)” now makes two rappers who failed to deliver anything satisfying over that oddly addicting Fruity Loops preset-ass beat.

Speaking of Fruity Loops, you’re right. I forgot about Soulja Boy.

I cannot believe I forgot about Soulja Boy.

To be totally fair to myself though, recently DeAndre has been spending a lot of his time failing to prove he’s stamped while also beefing with Bhris Brown over whose fame is most fleeting.

Soulja Boy was nonsense, and Yachty is NoNsEnSe .

Charity: Lil Yachty, the personal brand, could stand to learn a thing or two from Soulja Boy, who spun his own intergenerational rap riff with Ice-T into comedy gold. The best Yachty could do was mumble through his feud with Soulja Boy earlier this year, which Soulja Boy lost only due to that deus ex machina intervention from Breezy.

A theme of Lil Yachty conversations on the internet is that people only care about how Lil Yachty, the personal brand, positions himself with regard to other players in the hip-hop ecosystem. If you think Ebro is a reactionary fool, then Yachty is good because he makes Ebro, a hater, mad. Yachty’s whole “you’re either with the teens or you’re against them” shtick is the crux of his appeal. Lil Yachty is a musician only after the fact of his being a personal brand. Music is not his calling. Lil Yachty’s calling is the marketing department, which will pay him more in the long run.

“Forever Young” is horrible; please stop. If you don’t get this Quentin Miller–ass reference track for a Sunday youth choir rehearsal out of my face …

This album’s best jam is “Dirty Mouth,” a remarkably focused bit of slick talk that maybe sounds too much like the album’s weak single, “Peek a Boo,” for me to bet on it gaining much traction, even on content-starved Rap Twitter. There are songs on here on which Yachty is clearly trying to pantomime a hit record into being — “Better” apes the whole Carnival cruise Top 40 vibe to which Yachty is now 28 months late — but none of them sound especially inspired or even just plain focused. Post Malone didn’t exactly have to reinvent the wheel to pull off a clean hit with “Congratulations”; all he needed was some snappy, quotable verses, and a colorful bridge, and a simple, soaring chorus. Boom.

If you’re going to do Top 40 trap appropriation, there’s a pretty clear formula for making this stuff successful. Truly, though, I don’t believe Lil Yachty actually cares about music. At all. A year ago, when Yachty called Biggie “overrated,” a lot of critics interpreted that statement as Yachty signaling a particular disregard for the hip-hop canon. Yachty freestyled poorly on Hot 97, and detractors interpreted this shortcoming as Yachty not doing right by hip-hop as a craft. Alternatively, I interpret these statements and shortcomings as evidence that Lil Yachty is an artless troll with no musical imagination in general. A musician only after the fact. The best rappers can make words sound ridiculous; Yachty makes even Simplified English sound like a chore.

Until now, I’ve found myself agreeing to disagree about whether there’s really any there there with Yachty. But I can’t imagine too many people rallying around Teenage Emotions , a mess of half-formed thoughts, me-too clichés, and hookless yodeling in a genre where plenty of other, better rappers, such as Uzi and Kodak Black, are striking truer notes with much greater precision. There is too much good rap music out in any given week for anyone to be bothering with this shit for longer than a news cycle. As far as I can see, the jig is up.

Peters: Wait, hold up, if I don’t get “Forever Young” out of your face, you’ll do what? Wind up humming it in your sleep? It has low-to-medium resonance and high tunefulness.

I’ll concede that it’s also got a sort of high barrier to entry, psychologically, but the music was never as interesting as the character himself. I don’t know any Yachty fan (who could legally buy an alcoholic beverage) who wouldn’t admit to that with light prodding.

Charity: Lil Yachty fans are cynical taste-chasers who hate art. I appreciate your groundbreaking candor in revealing this truth to the world.

Peters: I’m totally fine with being cynical. It’s a symptom of being in your 20s. Yachty has at least another year until he has to grapple with that, before life becomes marginally more real. Can’t he have that?

Charity: You’re such a teen.

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Quality Control / Motown / Capitol

March 9, 2018

The reign of the self-proclaimed King of the Teens is over. At 20, Lil Yachty has aged-out of that constituency and there are a host of contenders already eager to replace him. In his quest to conquer the whole yung demo, he discovered teens are fickle and manifold, creatures of varying interests prone to unpredictable changes of heart. After being heralded as the harbinger of a new era in rap, the metrics didn’t bear out his impact. His debut, Teenage Emotions , was streamed considerably less in its first week (24,000) than records by the significantly less hyped a Boogie Wit da Hoodie ( 54,000 ), the younger XXXtentacion ( 67,000 ), or Yachty’s self-professed rival , Lil Uzi Vert (100,000). He reckoned with the unimpressive showing by saying, “I disconnected with my fans because I tried to do this other stuff,” the other stuff being his straight-faced struggle raps. Based on those comments, it seemed his next release would surely return to his original model of pure, unadulterated song.

At this point, with his royal status in question, Yachty is at a crossroads. His label, Quality Control, is quietly rebranding him as a Migos understudy, a bit player in their streaming rap empire. But Yachty has other ideas, and he plans to soak up as much bandwidth as possible by fanning his own flames. On Lil Boat 2 , it’s like he’s daring you not to like him. And so his sophomore album is a sequel in name only, a far cry from the candy-coated, bittersweet melodies that made him a viral sensation on the original. He’s a bruiser now, you see, trading in earworms and weightlessness for gravity and outlandish braggadocio. Maybe it’s a masterful troll that thrives off the misdirection. Maybe the most subversive thing he can do at this point is to dismantle his playhouse entirely, becoming the thing no one said he could be. It certainly is one of modern rap’s more bizarre, and fascinating, heel turns.

After opening with the on-brand crooner “Self-Made,” Lil Boat 2 becomes decidedly bar-heavy and grey. It’s made up of nearly 70 percent tuneless rap flexers with dark, creeping synths; “Boom!” embodies its title, and the Pi’erre Bourne -produced “Count Me In” is all muffled low end. This shift in tone is purposeful, almost forceful. It demands that the listener accept Yachty on his terms and shamelessly argues that he can be anything he wants to be.

The issue is that an album reliant on Yachty’s ability to rap can’t hold up to scrutiny. He is a rather spiritless writer. He only has a couple of rough song ideas. He is incapable of fitting his outsized personality into his pedestrian bars. But the sheer gall of this gambit is occasionally enough to tickle one’s curiosity: Attempted reinventions can be mesmerizing, even when they fail spectacularly. In this instance, he really goes for it. He does triplet flows. He splits punches. He packs cadences and stacks phonetic sounds. Take that, Funk Flex .

Yachty has definitely improved as a technician, making his raps more mobile and structurally sound, but most times the rhymes pass by as if on a conveyor belt. They seemingly have the same function, and the same constructions, and once they happen they’re forgotten almost instantly. His big, showy rap boasts are unimaginative, sometimes predictable, often bafflingly plain in their presentation: “Running to the money like I’m Frank Gore/This ring costs more than a Honda Accord.” He knows how to spend but not how to sell.

The central theme of Lil Boat 2 is simply how rich Yachty is and how broke you are by comparison. He is money-obsessed and really quite bratty about it. “These niggas hate ’cause I’m too rich,” he spits on “Mickey,” the implication being no one actually dislikes him or his music; they’re simply jealous. “I was buying diamonds, you was waiting for tax refunds,” he raps on “Flex,” a song that also works as a nominal diss of his longtime radio nemesis. “Tell your baby daddy I’m richer,” he raps on “Baby Daddy.” You can guess what “Whole Lotta Guap” is about. It isn’t even off-putting that he’s constantly haranguing you about the wealth gap; the real insult is that he flaunts his money in the most mundane of ways.

Duets with PnB Rock and Trippie Redd show that Yachty is still capable of flourishing in a more melodic space, but his refusal to lean into that mode is what makes Lil Boat 2 sound so leaden. Songwriting isn’t his strong suit, and while he’s taken great strides in that area, it was a mistake to build an album out of his raps. It can be entertaining to watch the gears turning, though. There aren’t any moments where he’s noticeably outpaced by his more gifted guests, as he holds his own with NBA YoungBoy , Tee Grizzley , 2 Chainz , and Offset . His best rapping gets packed into “FWM,” a free-flowing outlier that’s as natural and fun as the more whimsical songs in his catalog. His grill-bearing, chain-swinging performances on Lil Boat 2 make me a bit wistful for those—and maybe that was the point. We must suffer through the new Yachty to reassess the old one.

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Gordo on His 'Insane' Career, Reclaiming Black House Music and Recruiting Drake for His Debut Album (Exclusive)

The DJ/producer, spoke to PEOPLE about his house music-fueled debut album, ‘Diamante,' and reclaiming the genre's Black origins

Ivan Amet Achao Acuna/Medium Rare

If you’ve been tapped into the electronic dance music scene since the early 2010s, you know exactly who Diamante Blackmon was before he picked up the alias Gordo .

The 33-year-old Nicaraguan-American DJ/producer established a well-respected legacy defined by many “cultural moments” and generational hits when he operated under his moniker, Carnage — which is credited for producing songs by Migos , Rick Ross , Lil Yachty , Lil Uzi Vert , the late Mac Miller and many more. Between nurturing the U.S.' dance music boom of the last decade and his pioneering efforts to bridge rap, trap and EDM, the Grammy-nominated hitmaker’s reputation was more than solidified by the time he announced his old alias’ retirement in 2022 .

Sometime during the COVID-19 pandemic, though, Blackmon decided to start anew as Gordo, his house and techno rebrand born after he spent time reflecting on his musical evolution as a beatmaker.

“People never really saw me as the producer guy. I was just like the DJ,” Gordo tells PEOPLE. “But if you know music and appreciate urban and pop culture, then you'd understand that the quest I've been on is something that could be spoken about 100 years from now because I had so many cultural moments that I was involved in that dictated a lot of artists when I was Carnage. I'm doing this now with Gordo but on an even higher level.”

In the summer of 2022, Gordo immediately ascended to new heights with his six production credits across Drake ’s surprise chart-topping dance album Honestly, Nevermind — which the “Sticky” producer lauds for aiding the launch of his new moniker. 

Even the For All the Dogs trendsetter, 37, couldn’t deny that “Gordo got me on the wave” of house and dance music’s infectious influence in hip-hop and other genres that’s seen an uptick in the past few years. Hence, why he helped advise Gordo’s forthcoming debut studio album, Diamante , out Friday, July 26.

The 15-track LP, which has been over four years in the making, is described as Gordo’s “most personal project to date,” celebrating his long journey toward more creative freedom. Its all-star feature lineup includes Maluma , T-Pain , Leon Bridges , the late Young Dolph and, of course, Drake.

“I'm excited,” a pumped Gordo says of finally unleashing his album. “I'm just waiting for it to all finally come out. I've been waiting so long for this, and it's finally dropping. This time, the world is going to listen to it and look at me in a different way. I'm so ecstatic.”

From transitioning to his new professional alias and undergoing a personal transformation to reclaiming the cultural roots within house music, producer Gordo speaks to PEOPLE about all the “insane” events that culminated in his long-awaited debut album, Diamante . 

People first took notice of your work as Gordo after the release of Drake’s Honestly, Nevermind . How did it feel to come out the gate swinging like that on a No. 1 album?

It's crazy. In reality, Drake really helped me launch Gordo because I started the [alias] with six placements. It's kind of insane. Starting brand new, and you're starting with producing half of this guy's craziest album that he's ever done...it's just really insane.

You made the switch from your Carnage moniker to Gordo during the pandemic. How were you able to grow personally and professionally during that period of time?

I mean, I was locked in the house with my music. I moved to Hawaii. I was appreciating sunsets. I was taking a lot of psychedelics, a lot of mushrooms, I was really connecting with myself. My life had been so hectic. I'm only 33, and I feel like I'm 40 just because from [age] 21, literally, my life was airport, hotel, show, party, [repeat]. That's been my life for 12 years, and I'm still sane. 

The pandemic gave you a chance to press pause and relocate to Hawaii. How much recording did you do for the new album out there, and what made you want to stay there?

A lot of it I did in Hawaii. A lot of it I did in Thailand. A lot of it I did at some random airport somewhere, but the majority was in Hawaii. And I mean, why not? It's literally the most beautiful place in the world. I found a house in the middle of f---ing nowhere, and there's no delivery service. We have to cook breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I'm living a full life out there. No one knows who I am out there, so it's humbling and then also makes me feel like a normal person.

What else came out of that shift from Carnage to Gordo?

I mean, I quit drinking. I was sick, like actually sick. I had gastritis, EoE (Eosinophilic esophagitis) in my throat, a hiatal hernia and an H. pylori (Helicobacter pylori) infection — all at the same time. My body completely gave out, and I couldn't eat s---. My stomach was really f---ed up. I was just trying to do healthy stuff and eating healthy juices, fruits in the morning, even making my body worse. It was a bad time, but I stopped eating meat, stopped drinking and I lost 120 pounds in one year. I look good now. You know what I'm saying? Life's good over here.

Talk to me about this debut album. What makes it your most personal project to date, aside from it being named after you?

To keep it really a hundred bucks with you, if you don't listen to house music, can’t appreciate or tolerate it, then this album isn't for you — and I don't really honestly care about your opinion. But if you appreciate house music and you like the vibe, then this album will be your new favorite album. It's just the most tasteful way of bridging the gaps between urban, Latin and current pop culture, which is dance music. Dance music is on the rise again. You have all this type of music that everyone's consuming at high, high levels, but there's no Black representation of that. Even though house music and techno are from where? Us, Black music. We created it. It's our f---ing music, and it's a multi-billion dollar industry, and we're not trying to claim it? It blows my mind. 

What I'm doing is trying to have us have a proper representation because now we have all these white DJs working with rappers. They're making these electronic rap songs and their songs are big, but we also need to be represented well, and that's all I'm trying to do.

To your point about re-centering Black artists in house music, would you say your new album is more about educating listeners about the origins of the genre or reclaiming it?

No, my album is for somebody who already appreciates and gets the music. My purpose wasn't to teach everyone what this is and what they'd expect. My thing was, I'm already making it for a certain group of people who appreciate this music.

Ultimately, what do you hope to accomplish with this debut record?

It's just an introduction.

For the folks who have been following your work before you switched to Gordo, what do you think they'll appreciate most about this new album?

How much I've grown. I think that's the most important thing that you really get to notice. How much I've grown as a man, as a human, as a producer and as an artist.

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