Lil Yachty is the New American Dream: have fun, get rich, and make it look easy.
We're going to take a look at the values and beliefs of Lil Yachty, what we can learn from the 20-year-old superstar, and what his rise to fame says about the collective mindset of modern American consumers and where it’s headed.
In my last piece, I discussed hedonism in hip-hop, and the dry boredom with which many rap stars of the 21st century flaunt their belongings. Tyler, The Creator and Lil Pump were mentioned as disruptive forces in this unsustainable monotony, and some of you may have been reading and wondering the whole time why Lil Yachty wasn't brought up. Owing his initial rise to fame to the use of his 2015 single One Night in a viral internet comedy video, and presenting himself with the same absurd Dadaistic flair attributed to Tyler in interview after interview, Lil Yachty certainly has done a lot to bring comedy back to mainstream hip-hop.
But there's more to his persona, and more to the meteoric development of his now-massive following, than that. And there's more to be said about Yachty in general. After all, it's only been two years since Yachty first took to the stage, and the majority of his remarkably successful career has taken place before the release of his very first full-length studio album, Teenage Emotions, which came out earlier this year. Furthermore, Yachty does find himself, in terms of his attitude toward hedonism, often much closer to Tyler than to Pump. He does express regret at times, and has mentioned a certain disgust with himself as well. In recent video collaboration with Joji, in which Yachty must confess his sins, the video ends with Yachty crying out,
"I'm gonna burn in hell."
So I don't think it's fair to cast the same light of carelessness on him as we do Pump.
That being said, he definitely brings something new to the genre, with an often lighthearted style of rap-pop that he affectionately refers to as bubblegum-trap.
Rolling Stone described his music as "catchy, intentionally dinky-sounding tunes packed with off-color boasts delivered in a proudly amateurish singsong."[7] The Guardian called his music "fun, hook-first pop rap oblivious to songcraft and structure that doesn’t take itself too seriously, with very little interest in legacy and even less in rap canon."[8]
From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lil_Yachty
This is definitely not true of every song in Yachty's discography, but it is certainly the style he has become known for. If, somehow, you're listening to this, and haven't heard a Lil Yachty track, I seriously suggest you check out songs like One Night and Minnesota to get a feel for what we're talking about here.
Despite his many unconventional musical methods, Yachty does seem to hold some traditional, and often admirable, values, some of which have been especially prominent in hip-hop for decades now.
In Billboard's evaluation of Lil Yachty's 10 Most Personal Lyrics on 'Teenage Emotions,' J'na Jefferson brings to light some of Yachty's core values by picking out particularly touching moments from all across the debut LP.
"DN Freestyle"
"I remember TBT, used to have the CDG, sh-t was hella flee/ Back when all my thoughts were accurate, an Acura tryna chase a bill/ Now I focus hard on closing deals, so that when I sign a deal I gross a hundred mil”
On the second cut of of his debut LP (produced by DigitalNas), the young spitter reminisces about his personal glo-up. Before he became the rapper we know today, Yachty says he was rocking fake designer clothes, acting like he was special, while muddying his brain with thoughts of self-doubt. Now, he’s making sure he’s taking all the proper steps to remain successful.
Jefferson takes the time to elaborate on this bar really well, but let's also acknowledge that a lesson has been learned here, and that Yachty has adopted beliefs grounded in a statement universally popular throughout the spectrum of modern hip-hop: Don't fake it.
Yachty admits his cardinal sin of wearing fake designer clothes and confesses his struggle to believe in himself, but maybe this reflection, and this new frame of thought, comes from somewhere. Keeping that in mind, it's important to note that this bar comes from the track DN Freestyle, which features of the other side of Yachty, Lil Boat, a persona under which he often delivers hard-hitting, nasty lines in a way much more aligned with the coldness of modern hip-hop than his usual act. Perhaps Yachty, having now immersed himself in the lifestyle of a rap star who has to take parts of his career more seriously than he might have ever imagined, is seeking a kind of silent redemption from his newfound peers.
"Dirty Mouth"
"I can't front like I didn't come from my county/ I know where I'm from, I'm my daddy's son, I never switched up one time"
A few of Yachty’s lyrics in "Dirty Mouth" explain how people began treating him differently as soon as he became a hip-hop star. However, he assures listeners that he’s still the same kid from Mabelton, Georgia, and that nothing is steering him in the wrong direction.
This is another common theme in hip-hop, one that I like to refer to as Loyalty to the Self. Never forget who you are, where you came from, and what made you into the person we see today. This is admirable, and is accompanied by many other bars on Teenage Emotions in which Yachty brings attention to the loyalty he has for his friends, and for his squad of likeminded musicians known as The Sailing Team. The same rule applies here. This is an admirable trait that is incredibly prevalent in the culture of hip-hop, and has been for a very long time.
In fact, in the song All You Had To Say, Yachty mournfully condemns those who pretend to enjoy his company and who act like they supported him from the beginning, just to reach into his pockets or to steal some clout for themselves, piggybacking on the relentless hype-train, or should I say hype-boat, that is the Lil Yachty brand.
We see a pattern here. In All You Had to Say, Yachty takes the traditional hip-hop values we've mentioned so far, never faking it, Loyalty to the Self, and loyalty to the squad, and melds them together to deliver a grief-stricken ballad over the loss of people who seemed to have Yachty's back, but didn't, and had to be left behind.
"Better" (Feat. Stefflon Don)
"Everything in life could always be better/ Don’t settle for less 'cause then you miss out on more/ Everything in life won't always be pleasure/ You work for the treasure just to live even more"
On the Caribbean-influenced “Better,” Yachty and the U.K. musician [Stefflon Don]muse about how hard work and dedication can make for a stress-free life.
As important as it can be to make the hustle look easy, on this track Lil Yachty expresses the value he sees in struggle and endurance, simultaneously juggling this ideology with themes of romantic love and life-long companionship. These too are admirable to pursue, and must be especially difficult to engage in or even think of when women across the country are constantly throwing themselves at you, a common trait of the rock-star-lifestyle position that the super-famous hip-hop artists of today find themselves in. For Yachty, love is important, but might as well be as difficult to pursue as the millionaire status. But, if that's the case, he's accomplished one, so why not the other? And based on the rest of this inspiring track, Yachty believes that a companion to love and be loved by can propel an individual further in their success, providing motivation to be a good person and seek a good life; one where at the end of it all, there's nothing left to do but play checkers in your rocking chairs and be happy together.
There are a number of other tracks on Teenage Emotions in which Yachty explores his views on love, and the significant impact it can have on a person's life. Each time love is showcased, however, it's with a different attitude. In the aforementioned Better, Lil Yachty sees romantic love for his partner as something making him a better man. In Forever Young, he discusses companionship in ways similar to some of his bars on Better, but with a special emphasis on the difference between "puppy love" and a real connection, which he feels like he's made here. He simply wants to be in love forever. In Made of Glass, Yachty delves into unreciprocated love, in which he feels as though his love interest is looking right through him, despite everything he knows he's done for her, and for her attention. In Bring it Back, Yachty confidently and suavely asks a past lover to rejoin him, and in Running With A Ghost, the longing gets to him, and he breaks down in yearning.
In Momma, Yachty demonstrates his greatest love for the one person he knows will never leave his side; his mother. The motivation Yachty gets from love, as discussed in Better, is clearly not limited to that of romantic nature. His greatest motivation is his love for his mother, claiming: "She used to work hard for us, now I break my back for her." This song concludes the saga of love on Teenage Emotions, and the placement of these tracks feels distinctly intentional, taking the listener on a journey through a kind of sub-plot of the album. Yachty shows us the best and worst of love, and assures us that, despite these inevitable ups and downs, if we want real love, we often need to look no further than our childhood homes.
It's worth noting here that love and respect for one's mother above all other people in one's life is another common theme in hip-hop, but Lil Yachty's passion for this ideal undermines any suspicion that he might have just picked this up from the culture of his rap-star peers. The love Yachty has for his mother is genuine. It is ingrained in him, and, as Jefferson puts it, he implores listeners [everywhere] to think about their own mothers.
In light of all of this, it's safe to say that, despite the innovative sound, technique, and attitude that Lil Yachty carries with him, he still has some very traditional and very meaningful values and understandings of some of the most personal phenomena in the human experience.
What does all this mean for Yachty and his success story?
Well, it means that by harboring admirable ethical values at heart, and by generally coming across as a nice guy while still delivering the boastful and occasionally off-putting bars his fans desired, Yachty was able to become the market-friendly rap star that the ever-growing industry needed. We live in a world where singles from Future, Migos, and Kodak Black are topping the charts again and again, but corporations will always be hesitant to engage with these artists commercially because of the dangerous lifestyle they represent, and because of the unpredictable nature of the stars themselves. What if Target had assigned a Carly Rae Jepson mash-up to Kodak, instead of to Yachty, and then the next day Kodak went back to jail or accidentally livestreamed his downstairs mix-up in the shower, again. Not to mention the parental outrage that would ensue if the ruthless 21 Savage was featured in, let's say, a Sierra Mist commercial on national television.
The commercial potential for these stars is huge, but it's just not for everybody. Despite his raunchiness, Lil Yachty pretty much is, and on top of that, he's hilarious.
The first time I was introduced to Yachty's antics was in a history class, my junior year of high school. My teacher played the Lil Yachty Sprite commercial at the beginning of class, and would replay it obsessively, at different times throughout the period. For a lot of people, though the setting may have been different, this was their introduction to Yachty too; a goofy guy with red dreads playing a piano in an ice cave.
As Yachty then went on to become the face of the new Nautica and Urban Outfitter collection, and to dedicate an entire song to the promotion of Target, it became abundantly clear what he was doing. He was taking an "all-shortcuts" approach to making it big in the music industry. But we didn't care. We embraced it.
Those who had been fans of Yachty since the release of his first single, or since his very first Instagram posts, cheered him on for the strides he was making, and those of us who had previously never heard of this dude, just wanted more of him.
Yachty was, and is, hyper-aware of this. In an interview with Joe Coscarelli of the New York Times, Yachty put it this way:
“Rappers don’t have endorsements because of their images,” he said. “Endorsement money is huge. And I care about my character.” He added: “I don’t rap about drinking or smoking, ever, because I don’t do it. I don’t rap about anything I don’t do.”
From https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/fashion/mens-style/lil-yachty-rap-atlanta.html
Again, the traditional hip-hop view of Loyalty to the Self has a positive impact on Yachty's success. He also states:
“I’m not a rapper, I’m an artist,” he said. “And I’m more than an artist. I’m a brand.”
From https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/09/fashion/mens-style/lil-yachty-rap-atlanta.html
That's so meta, right? An artist referring to himself as a brand? It's like we're all in on some joke, like we're all taking advantage of the system together, riding the waves of success together. We're the generation of conscious consumers, and we admire honesty. We like to know when we're being sold something, because if we like it, if it intrigues us, we'll still buy into it.
The problem here is that Teenage Emotions brought so much variety to the table that the general public who had grown accustomed to the catchy pop jingles of One Night and Yachty's feature on Super Duper Kyle's smash hit, iSpy, didn't know what to think.
There are definitely tracks on his debut that echo the sound that we had become familiar with and had attributed to his name, but there was so much more going on, between much more experimental pop songs and the re-introduction of Lil Boat on angst-filled, misogynistic (but not lighthearted, not funny) tracks like Peek A Boo and Dirty Mouth. Yachty himself, in a very awkward MTV News interview conducted at Lollapalooza 2017, called Teenage Emotions an experimental album.
This is a VERY interesting choice, given that we're talking about Yachty's debut record, preceded only by features, and by two mix-tapes, neither of which gained much traction outside of the handful of iconic singles that had become branded onto our brains, and that had become synonymous with Yachty's image.
Receptions of Teenage Emotions, both among critics and Yachty's general fan-base, varied widely. Many people, perhaps rightfully so, felt that this product was not what they were promised. It was not the project that had been relentlessly, albeit lightheartedly, marketed to them for two years straight.
At first, Yachty took the Zack Snyder route, claiming that Teenage Emotions is an album for the true Lil Yachty fans of the world. He would later publish a public apology on Instagram for allowing his brand to grow significantly larger than his music career, and for the possible misrepresentation that cast onto him as an artist.
I forgave Yachty, and immediately gained some more respect for the guy, but I also really liked Teenage Emotions, so I'm a little biased.
We haven't talked about it much yet, but I think now would be a good time to discuss Lil Yachty's alter-ego, Lil Boat, a bit more.
Yachty has said multiple times, both in interviews and in his lyrics, that the Lil Boat persona is his way of proving himself as a rapper, something he originally never claimed to be, or to want to become. This makes sense generally, but taking into consideration what we know about Yachty's personality (that he doesn't seem to care what others think), the creation of an alter-ego for this reason alone seems largely out of character.
However, when you throw in the context Lil Yachty, as a musician, has had to exist in for two years now, it makes more sense than ever before.
If Lil Yachty wholeheartedly believes in the values we discussed while analyzing lyrics from Teenage Emotions, such as Loyalty to the Self, loyalty to friends and family and to your upbringing, focusing on meaningful and healthy relationships, and devoting himself to becoming the best person he can possibly be, he must have been constantly acting against his ethical ideals in order to achieve the level of fame that he has in such a short time. While trying to maintain a widely-marketable public image, Yachty was not able to be himself. While trying to appeal to and relate to every teenager in America, he had to distance himself from his origins, because he's a unique guy, with an undoubtedly unique past. He had to cut people off left and right, abandoning what could have been meaningful relationships in pursuit of wealth and fame. Under all of this pressure, dealing with an intense moral struggle internally, it's easy to see how Yachty would need to create an entirely different person upon which he can cast the grimier bits of himself, and through which he can express the anger and frustration that has been festering inside of him from day one of being pushed around by executives, and by A&R's willing to let Yachty embarrass himself for the sake of marketability.
He's finally made it. He's finally becoming his own artist, his own person, again. And that shows in Teenage Emotions. Yachty, to some degree, can do whatever he wants now. He can pamper his mom and build meaningful relationships with those left in his squad and in The Sailing Team. He can pay homage to his father and his upbringing, and he can finally become the person he knows he should be. But the anger is still there, and as long as this persists, Lil Boat yelling crude bars about having sex with your auntie and loving the range on an AR-15 seem inevitable, and yet completely understandable.
We're going to talk more about dual personalities in the next piece, and Lil Boat will be making a comeback, alongside the likes of Slim Shady, Wolf Haley, Makaveli, MF DOOM, and more.
In the meantime, stay positive, and remember, there's a Lil Boat in all of us.