Yeat’s latest album, Lyfestyle, whirrs by in an hour-long blur, its details distorted in a cacophony of electronic noise. The Portland rapper surfs amid chiptune beats and synthwave stabs, and freestyles lines that he transmogrifies with adlibs and distortion effects. There are references to “big body Tonkas” and “geekin’.” He occasionally calls himself “God” without attributing that term’s origins in Five Percenter rap. But such details don’t seem to matter. Whether Nineties Memphis rapper 2 Low Key gets sampled on “STFU” or Eighties funk-styled synth-bass is laid under “New High,” every frame of reference dissolves into content for Lyfestyle’s Jamba juice blender.
Much like Travis Scott, another artist deeply focused on sonics and spectacle, Yeat has become a divisive figure. His increasingly familiar Balaclava ski-masked visage has become hard to ignore – in February, his album 2093 debut at number 2 on the Billboard album chart – although some critics question if he truly represents the best of the internet’s rage-plugg-trap Venn diagram. To his credit, Yeat cuts a distinct figure out of the smoky haze and AI-generated graphics that adorn his covers. A lot of that is due to his executive producer, Synthetic, who matches Yeat’s murmurings with impressive beats, like the accelerating skid noise of “Speedball,” the crushed synths of “Forever Again,” and the bulbous melodies of “Lyfe Party.” Synthetic’s impact is muted by Lyfestyle’s sheer length: at 22 tracks, it’s an album that invites fast-forwarding to one’s favorite cuts, not deep and focused listening. Still, it has its pleasures, even as one wonders if a stronger rapper could make more out of the music.
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Yeat raps in a freestyle format, punching in enough bars and melodies for two or three verses, then recycling a four-bar hook to serve as a song’s rickety chorus. There’s little sense of thematic perspective, which would be fine if he excelled at strong throwaway lines like Future or had a distinctively squirrelly voice like Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti. Instead, Yeat’s flat, yelp-y tone often sounds like he’s bobbing in the ocean, gasping at ideas. There are just a handful of consistent lyrical performances like “On 1,” where he says, “Yeah, we leave you out of shape, crinkle-cut fries.” And he gets occasional help from guests like Kodak Black, Don Tolliver, Summrs, and Lil Durk, the latter whose distinctive drill flow turns “Lyfestyle” into an album highlight.
It’s not until the final track, “Fatë,” when Yeat offers more than half-processed boasts. “Look into my eyes, you’ll see a thousand things,” he says as he remembers seeing an alien when he was a child and “the crib was shaky, felt like earthquakes in the night.” Then, he ends the track with a teaser ad for his next epic, Dangerous Lyfe: “Hope you get ready, Ima take flight.” On to bigger – and hopefully better – flights ahead.