It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Lil Yachty is branching out musically — he’s been doing it his whole career. Despite being a really solid straight-up rapper, he made his first big splash musically with the Lil Boat mixtape, which found him singing over cloudy beats as much as spitting bruising battle raps, although he’d already proved he could do that, too. More recently, his Michigan Boy Boat mixtape saw him try on a new regional style that lent itself to his rapid-fire delivery alongside some of Michigan’s hottest up-and-comers.
But his next album might be his biggest swing yet. During an interview at Atlanta jewelry story Icebox, Yachty said his new album would depart from rap entirely. “My new album is a non-rap album,” he said. ““It’s alternative, it’s sick! I’ve always wanted to [do one] but now I’ve met all these amazing musicians and producers. It’s like a psychedelic-alternative project. It’s different and it’s all live instrumentation. I’ve changed my entire dynamic. I’m telling you, with this album and on, I’m creating music a whole lot differently.”
Among those producers is Kevin Parker of Tame Impala, with whom Yachty remixed “Breathe Deeper” last year, and his most recent solo single was the soft-rock-inspired “Love Music” — perhaps offering a glimpse of what he has in store on this mysterious new album.