Lil Yachty was the "King of the Teens." He was the face of bubblegum trap, a red-braided lightning rod for old-head rappers who thought the genre was dying because a kid from Atlanta wanted to rap over beats that sounded like Mario Kart. Then January 2023 happened. When Let’s Start Here Lil Yachty dropped, it didn’t just move the needle; it broke the speedometer. People expected high-pitched ad-libs and "Minnesota" vibes. Instead, they got a Pink Floyd-inspired psychedelic rock odyssey that sounded like it was recorded in a lava lamp.
It was jarring.
The shift was so seismic that it forced a total re-evaluation of Miles McCollum as an artist. This wasn't a rapper "trying out" a new sound with a single experimental track. This was a full-scale defection to another genre. Recorded mostly at Quality Control’s studios and various spots in El Paso, the album arrived with a heavy live-instrumentation feel that most modern hip-hop lacks entirely.
The Night Everything Changed for Boat
Before this record, Yachty was in a weird spot. He was successful, sure. He had the Drake features and the Sprite commercials. But he wasn't being taken seriously. Critics looked at him as a product of a specific SoundCloud era that was slowly fading into the rearview mirror.
Then came the listening party at Liberty Science Center. Imagine sitting in a planetarium, looking at stars, while "the guy who made One Night" blasts sprawling, reverb-drenched guitar solos into your ears. That was the moment the industry realized he wasn't joking. He wasn't trolling. He spent a massive amount of time with producers like Justin Raisen and SadPony, people who helped shape the sounds of Yves Tumor and Sky Ferreira. You can hear that influence in the grit of the distortion.
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The opening track, "the BLACK seminole.," is nearly seven minutes long. That’s a bold move for a guy whose fan base has the attention span of a TikTok scroll. It’s got these soaring backing vocals from Diana Gordon that literally mimic Great Gig in the Sky. If you listen closely to the transition around the four-minute mark, the drums stop being programmed patterns and start feeling like a physical heartbeat. It’s messy. It’s loud. It’s gorgeous.
Why Let’s Start Here Lil Yachty Pissed Off the Purists
The rock community is notoriously gatekeepy. When a rapper steps into their sandbox, the immediate reaction is usually "stick to what you know." But Let’s Start Here Lil Yachty did something different. He didn't just sample a rock song; he built a rock album from the ground up.
There were no trap drums. Zero.
If you go back and look at the credits, you see names like Mac DeMarco and Alex G. These aren't the names you usually find on a QC tracklist. By bringing in these indie darlings, Yachty bypassed the "culture vulture" accusations and earned a weird sort of respect from the Pitchfork crowd. But it wasn't a universal win. Some long-time fans felt betrayed. They wanted "Poland" energy. They wanted the high-energy mosh pit music. Instead, they got "pRETTY," a song that sounds like it’s melting under a Texas sun.
Honestly, the division was the point. Yachty has gone on record—specifically in his interview with Zane Lowe—stating that he wanted to be respected as a "serious artist." He was tired of being the punchline. To get that respect, he had to burn down the house he built.
The Sonic Architecture of the Album
Let’s talk about the actual sound. The vocal processing on this record is thick. Yachty’s voice has always been polarizing because of that natural warble, but here, he leans into it. He uses the Auto-Tune as an instrument rather than a correction tool. It blends into the synthesizers until you can't tell where the human ends and the machine begins.
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"sAy sOmEtHiNg" is probably the most accessible point on the project. It has this driving, Tame Impala-esque bassline that feels like driving through a neon city at 3:00 AM. It’s catchy, but it’s anxious. That’s the recurring theme of the record: anxiety masked by high-fidelity production.
He didn't do this alone, though. Teo Halm and Jacob Portiv also played massive roles in ensuring the transitions were seamless. The album plays like one long piece of music. If you shuffle it, you’re doing it wrong. You have to let the feedback from one song bleed into the intro of the next. That’s how it was designed. It’s an "album-album" in an era of "single-playlists."
The Quest for Authenticity in a Plastic World
There is a huge misconception that this was a PR stunt. People thought Yachty was just chasing the "alternative" trend because it’s cool right now. But if you look at his history, he’s always been a weirdo. He grew up listening to a massive range of music.
This album was his "coming out" party for his true tastes.
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When you look at the cover art—those AI-generated, distorted faces in a boardroom—it perfectly captures the uncanny valley of his career. He was in the boardroom, but he didn't look like anyone else there. He felt distorted. By leaning into the psychedelic, he finally found a visual and sonic language that matched his internal state.
Critics like Anthony Fantano gave it a surprisingly high score, which further solidified its status. But more importantly, it changed how other rappers approached their own music. Suddenly, the "rules" of what a trap artist could do were gone. Lil Uzi Vert’s Pink Tape followed shortly after with its own rock infusions, though with a much more metal/numetal tilt than Yachty’s psych-rock.
How to Truly Experience the Record
If you're just getting into this era of his career, don't start with the hits. Don't go looking for a "vibe" to put in the background while you study. This is "active listening" music.
- Get a pair of actual headphones. Not cheap earbuds. You need to hear the panning on the guitars in "IVORY."
- Read the lyrics while you listen. They aren't complex—Yachty isn't trying to be Bob Dylan—but the simplicity of the words contrasted with the complexity of the music is where the magic happens.
- Watch the live performances. His SNL performance was a turning point. Seeing a full band behind him changed the perspective for a lot of skeptics. It proved he could carry the energy without a backing track doing 90% of the work.
The legacy of Let’s Start Here Lil Yachty isn't just the music itself. It’s the permission it gave to an entire generation of artists to stop being one thing. It proved that you can be the "Minnesota" guy and the "Pink Floyd" guy at the same time. You just have to be brave enough to fail. And while not every track on this album is a masterpiece—some of the middle sections like "paint THROUGH THE OVERSPRAY" can feel a bit repetitive—the ambition alone makes it one of the most important pivot points in 2020s music history.
What to Do Next
If this record resonated with you, don't stop there. Go listen to The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd and Lonerism by Tame Impala. Compare the drum fills. Look at how they use silence. Then, go back and listen to Yachty’s Lil Boat mixtape from 2016. The DNA is actually there—the playfulness, the lack of traditional structure—it just took a few years and a lot of courage for him to let it out in this specific way.
Stop putting artists in boxes. The box doesn't exist anymore. Yachty burned it.