lil yachty interview 2022

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Chance The Rapper's ‘Star Line' Mixtape Is Aptly Named With Features From Lil Wayne, Lil Yachty, And T-Pain

For those who were waiting for new Chance The Rapper music , you’re in luck. The Chicago artist revealed the tracklist for his forthcoming mixtape Star Line .

Fans noticed that the “ No Problem ” rapper changed his Instagram bio to read “Working on my mixtape it's called Star Line .” In addition, last week, he shared a trailer on X, formerly known as Twitter , that featured him rapping in the background while cycling through scenes of him in a dark room, lying on a carpet, sitting in front of a fireplace, playing pool, in the booth, and more.

The excitement came with cameo appearances by artists who will be featured on the album, namely Lil Wayne , Lil Yachty, T-Pain, DJ Premier, Jermaine Dupri , Jazze Pha, and Vic Mensa.

Chance The Rapper didn’t want to leave fans hanging with just the Star Line features, so he uploaded a preview of a track titled “Buried Alive.” The visual featured his go-to method as of late, where one-by-one each word appeared sequentially in white typeface on a Black screen. He asked fans if he should record a video and they let their voices be heard in the comments.

“No drop an album,” one user wrote. “That boy rapping [with] passion again,” another fan commented. “I love when yo heart bleed out like this man. Fav ‘version’ of you,” another user wrote. It appears there is a lot of positivity for Chance, especially given the fact he hasn’t released an LP since 2019’s The Big Day .

In December 2022, he spoke with VIBE about his creative process while working on Star Line , which was originally titled Star Line Gallery , and his desire to do more than just prove he can rap well. “When I first started [working on the new album], every song was kind of like ‘The Heart & The Tongue’ and not in terms of production, but just in terms of it was very rappy,” he said. “I think in time, I've naturally grown and had so many different experiences that have catered it to move more towards substance that, it's still rappy, but now I feel like ‘The Highs & The Lows’ verse, I feel, was very, very vulnerable.”

“I literally barred out on ‘A Bar About A Bar,’ but I love the fact that I felt free enough in that time because right now, maybe today, if I hadn't dropped it, I might not never drop it,” Chance The Rapper continued. “I might be like, ‘Man, this is so self-contained and meta’ but also that's the point. I'm an artist. At the end of the day, I should be making art for art's sake and in my youth, because I am still in my 20s, technically, I should be having fun and creating to show people what you can create.”

Earlier this year, he shared “I Will Be Your (Black Star Line Freestyle)” which sampled Stephanie Mills' 1981 R&B record, "Don't Stop Doin' What ‘Cha Do." Last year, he released the 10th-anniversary edition of his seminal mixtape Acid Rap and also appeared on Madeintyo’s “BET UNCUT” which also featured Smino.

It seems like the wait is over and Chance is ready to remind people what he can do on wax. It’s now just a matter of when Star Line will come out.

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• Chance The Rapper And Kirsten Corley Bennett Announce Divorce After 5 Years Of Marriage

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The Rebirth of Boat

Between his high-profile bro-ship with Drake and a decidedly non-rap album in ‘Let’s Start Here.,’ Lil Yachty may have been the most talked-about hip-hop artist of 2023. The question is: What comes next?

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It’s easy now to forget how we thought of Tyler, the Creator before 2017, but it’s worth recounting. As the leader of the Odd Future clique, he was considered something of a juvenile prankster, more known for his (admittedly offensive) provocations than his (admittedly many) talents. Taken at face value, he was a jester in a Supreme cap, Bart Simpson trading his slingshot for a cracked copy of Fruity Loops.

That changed, however, with the release of Tyler’s fourth album, Flower Boy . It was a revelation: candid, confessional, mature—all without losing its sense of adventurousness. Flower Boy was daring and at times gorgeous. Maybe that version of Tyler was lurking inside all along, but it came as somewhat of a shock to the larger listening public. (Including us here at The Ringer , who called the album “radiant” and said it seemed to be made with “more purpose” than anything he had tried previously.)

Tyler’s journey to Flower Boy feels relevant when discussing the most important figure in rap music of this year: Lil Yachty. Once dismissed as a “mumble rapper” or a red-braided featherweight, the rapper born Miles McCollum has undergone something of a transformation the past 12 months. The one-time King of Teens is grown now, and at 26 years old, he finds himself at a crossroads similar to the one where Tyler was at that age.

Yachty’s metamorphosis has included several facets, from becoming something of a spiritual North Star for Drake to going viral with the most addictive song of his career, “Poland.” But when we talk about the renewed sense of artistry Yachty found in 2023, it begins with one thing: Let’s Start Here. , his LP from January, which does away with the “bubblegum trap” of earlier in his career and embraces vibey guitar music. It’s possibly the best album of his career—and almost certainly the biggest pivot any mainstream artist has made in the past few years. But more importantly, it’s a statement of intent that was, like Flower Boy , made with more purpose than anything he had previously attempted. “Fuck any of the albums I dropped before this one. … I wanted to show people a different side of me—and that I can do anything,” the two-time Grammy-nominated artist told Billboard last spring.

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Let’s Start Here. is the multiplatinum-selling artist’s fifth studio album and first official full-length in three years . From the outside looking in, it seemed like Yachty was at peace with doing more of the same musically (save for “Poland”; more on that in a minute) and that his influence had plateaued. He had obviously branched out and stacked up wins in other areas—his 2021 mixtape Michigan Boy Boat is a cult favorite—but when it came to his own music, the progression felt stagnant.

LSH , which is heavily inspired by Pink Floyd–esque psychedelic rock, replaces Yachty’s sticky refrains, trap production, and tongue-in-cheek rhymes with reverberating vocals, drawn-out live instrumentation, and very little wordplay. It’s also important to mention that he had a hand in producing 12 of the 14 tracks . Many of Yachty’s past projects have been predominantly feature-heavy, enlisting high-profile names ranging from Future to Vince Staples, but LSH is noticeably stripped back. The album has a seven -minute intro whose back half is completely devoid of lyrics. This is planets away from the repetitive earworms of his early career like “Minnesota” and “Peek A Boo.” That said, he doesn’t totally leave his trademark intoxicating melodies behind on LSH . “sAy sOMETHINg” and “paint THE sky,” a pair of back-to-back highlights, show what’s possible when he finds the right balance between his distinctly stretchy, auto-tuned riffs and the multilayered, slowed instrumentals.

Conversely, “drive ME crazy!” exemplifies one of the many moments when Yachty takes the back seat and lets his supporting cast take center stage. The love song opens with a groovy bass line and Diana Gordon’s voice gliding over a bed of high-pitched strings. Yachty matches her energy with his own crooning before his verse is hijacked by a kaleidoscope of synths that drown him out. He returns on the back end, closing out the song with a rare bit of rapping over a laid-back, snare drum–laced beat. It’s some of his most thoughtful work to date.

LSH is by no means a perfect album, and Yachty’s shortcomings are exposed on tracks where it sounds like he’s wearing his influences a little too much on his sleeve. Upon multiple spins, both “running out of time” and “THE zone~” feel closer to Tame Impala cosplay than anything groundbreaking.

Yachty’s always been known for being versatile and chameleonic, but not to the degree of making full-on, drug-inspired rock music, so to describe this as a creative risk is quite apt. However, the calculated gambit ended up marking a series of career bests for Yachty. LSH debuted at no. 1 on three separate Billboard charts , became his highest-rated album on Metacritic , and earned endorsements from sources as varied as Questlove and Anthony Fantano . But while a lot has been written about LSH and Yachty’s intentional move away from raps, the heat check that came next is equally as interesting.

Starting in April with “ Strike (Holster) ,” Yachty converted tracks from an already recorded rap album into a handful of singles he released over the next five months. The songs in question—“ Slide ,” “ Solo Steppin Crete Boy ,” “ Tesla ,” and “ The Secret Recipe. ”—range from a freestyle with online superstar Kai Cenat to going bar for bar with one of hip-hop’s finest, J. Cole. These weren’t just a few loosies he was trying to pump out before his next album, either; each song had a corresponding music video to match and felt aesthetically different from the last.

More importantly, the songs felt fresh, and his writing felt much more polished than in many of his earlier rap efforts (the less we talk about “COUNT ME IN,” the better). The decision to return to his roots in between non-rap projects is smart for a few reasons. It holds over his day-one fans by playing the hits, it sustains the buzz he generated from LSH without oversaturating the market, and it gives him a chance to move the needle on the long-standing narrative that he isn’t a “serious” rapper (a notion that’s plagued his career). There will always be those who question Yachty’s lyrical ability, but if nothing else, these drops showcase a noticeably refined pen game without losing his special knack for generating legitimate bangers .

This is a sharp shift from a few years back, when Yachty was (wrongly) seen as more of a mushed-mouth interloper than a capital-A Artist. His rapid rise was met with harsh backlash almost immediately due to some combination of Yachty’s perceived allergy to lyricism in his music and an indifference to rap’s history and the legends who came before him. After Yachty revealed that he didn’t take the storied art form seriously during a Hot 97 interview , the floodgates opened and many of the genre’s veteran gatekeepers (the old heads ) stepped up to take their shots. Funkmaster Flex took to the airwaves to disparage Yachty’s lack of bars, Ebro Darden, who conducted said interview, went back and forth with him online, and Joe Budden said point-blank that he isn’t hip-hop.

Fast-forward to November of this year and Yachty is still ruffling the feathers of rap traditionalists , but this time—in an ironic turn of events—from the other side of the aisle. “The place that hip-hop is in right now is a terrible place … it’s a lot of imitation. It’s a lot of quick, low-quality music being put out. It’s trendy. It’s a lot less risk-taking. It’s a lot less originality,” he said at a Rolling Stone event .

How did Yachty—the same artist who was once maligned for “ruining the culture”—reach a point where he feels empowered enough to act as a spokesperson and critique the very same genre that tried to reject him?

Well, having influence over the biggest artist rap has ever seen certainly bolsters his credibility on the subject.

“This lil Drizzy reppin’ Crete.”

Those are the opening words on “Another Late Night,” a memorable cut from one of the most popular albums of the year, Drake’s For All the Dogs . On the surface, the lyric is a simple hat tip from the Canadian megastar to Lil Yachty (and his blossoming label Concrete Boyz ), who spits the song’s infamous second verse and is credited as a coproducer. But after you dig deeper and reflect on the past 12 months for Yachty, that line—and, by extension, the song—serves as a fitting microcosm of his 2023 run, which is inextricably linked to a fruitful friendship turned partnership with Drake.

lil drizzy reppin crete pic.twitter.com/WstTwnDjbb — CONCRETE BOY BOAT^ (@lilyachty) October 25, 2023

Rewind the clock back to the end of 2022, and two important developments occur: the accidental virality of hit single “Poland” and the start of that Drake alliance. Last October, a snippet of a new Lil Yachty song leaked online and rapidly took over TikTok , so much so that he was all but forced to drop it. Yachty even admitted that he recorded it as a joke and never planned to have it come out. Just days later, “Poland” became his only solo release of that year. The song’s catchy hook and extraterrestrial beat set the internet ablaze almost immediately upon its streaming arrival. “Poland” is now up to more than 130 million streams on Spotify ( The Ringer ’s parent company) and over 30 million views on its accompanying Lyrical Lemonade music video . Not bad for an accident.

Not even a month removed from the “Poland” takeover, Yachty showed up all over Drake and 21 Savage’s surprise collab album, Her Loss . He appeared not as a featured act but instead as an executive producer of sorts, receiving coproduction credits on a fourth of the tracklist. He also supplied a handful of ad-libs on “BackOutsideBoyz” and “Jumbotron Shit Poppin” and even claimed to have chosen the project’s cover art as well. (At least he didn’t go with an AI image, like he did for nightmare fuel on Let’s Start Here .)

Yachty’s involvement on the album felt like a test run from Drake to see if their budding bromance could evolve into a prosperous musical union as well as prove that their past chemistry on “Oprah’s Bank Account” wasn’t a fluke. And boy, did Yachty pass with flying colors. Their collaboration on Her Loss launched a close working relationship between the two, as evidenced by his influence pouring over onto For All the Dogs .

The Concrete Boyz CEO and October’s Very Own boss linked back up for seconds on Drake’s eighth studio album. Yachty’s fingerprints are all over the project, with five coproduction credits as well as his verse on “Another Late Night,” which is the first time he’s been listed as an official feature on one of Drizzy’s songs. And this doesn’t even include two more coproduction nods on Drake’s Scary Hours 3 , a six-pack EP doubling as a FATD deluxe edition. Dating back to last November, that brings the total number of Yachty-produced Drake songs up to 12. Simply put, Her Loss and FATD don’t exist without Lil Yachty. The frequent collaborators have formed an inseparable bond over the past year-plus, which has simultaneously impacted the 6 God’s output and elevated Yachty’s commercial ceiling.

Yachty is no stranger to stardom, having featured on a couple of top-five Billboard Hot 100 hits (“Broccoli” and “iSpy”), being named to the now-iconic 2016 XXL Freshman Class , modeling for Yeezy Season 3 , and racking up millions of streams, all before he was legally old enough to drink. Additionally, he had cemented his status among rap fans and critics alike as a SoundCloud favorite born out of the so-called “mumble rap” era. His influence can be seen in the likes of Juice WRLD , Trippie Redd , Lil Tecca , and Yeat —all artists who shaped the past half decade of rap music in their own right.

Still, there’s nothing quite like the Drake stimulus package. According to Hip Hop by the Numbers , Yachty’s appearance on FATD subsequently boosted his monthly listeners on Spotify by a whopping 40 percent .

Over the years, Drake’s become notorious for attaching himself to the coattails of various artists—adopting the Weeknd’s moody aesthetics, Playboi Carti’s flow, Bad Bunny’s language, Skepta’s U.K. slang, the list goes on—as they just so happen to be peaking in their respective lanes. He’s pretty much got it down to a science at this point: He’ll seek out the hottest sound, find an artist who’s spearheading it, and pair up with them so it doesn’t come off like he’s fully biting their style. In Yachty’s case, it doesn’t hurt that he and Drake seem to be genuine BFFs outside the booth, but it’s also an endorsement of his musical worldview. Drake said it best on “ Wick Man ”: “Boat say he the recipe, I must be the key ingredient.”

Now it’s up to Yachty to use that recipe for himself. His past year hasn’t been without its blemishes— awkwardly minimizing rapper Sexxy Red’s trauma on his podcast, singling out a Pitchfork critic for simply doing his job, calling internet trolls “gay,” and getting sued by the SEC among them—but Yachty is operating on a different plane now. He’s got more visibility, and it’s reasonable to expect that he’ll be more in demand as a producer. (His work with City Girls on “Act Up” shows that he’s more than just a Drake-hit wonder.) The Aubrey cosign has a mixed track record on helping the artist he’s borrowing from—ask Earl Sweatshirt his opinions on that—but given Yachty’s history and stature, he’s more likely to end up a Lil Baby than a BlocBoy JB. And he seems intent on making sure of it—as he told Variety , he’s already planning another non-rap LP for the new year, which could explore sounds beyond what he experimented with on Let’s Start Here .

It’s similar to the situation Tyler, the Creator found himself in coming out of 2017. Tyler could’ve easily rested on his laurels after Flower Boy , but instead he doubled down. (His fifth full-length, IGOR , was an even bolder artistic risk than Flower Boy and won him a Grammy; it’s a perfect album.) He’d later return to a more conventional approach with his 2021 Gangsta Grillz homage, Call Me If You Get Lost , but he did so from a position of power: having changed the trajectory of his career and earned the respect of even his most vehement doubters. Yachty took note: “He’s [Tyler, the Creator] the reason I made this album. He’s the one who told me to do it, just go for it. He’s so confident and I have so much respect for him because he takes me seriously, and he always has,” he said in March .

If the past 12 months have done anything for Yachty, they’ve made it clear we should take him as seriously as Tyler takes him—and he takes himself. But if he’s learned anything from Tyler, 2023 simply could be a launchpad into yet another transformation. Yachty titled his big pivot Let’s Start Here. because to him, it’s just the beginning of something. What happens next is arguably more interesting, even if the ending remains a question mark.

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Lil Yachty Ready to Get Going With New Album ‘Let’s Start Here’

By Jon Blistein

Jon Blistein

Lil Yachty appears ready to release his first new album in three years later this month. 

On social media Tuesday, Jan. 17, the rapper shared what was ostensibly the weird-as-hell cover art for his next LP — a surreal image of a group of besuited adults sporting some deranged smiles — along with the title and release date: Let’s Start Here out Jan. 27. 

Lil Yachty then cryptically added, “Chapter 2,” before thanking fans “for the patience.”

View this post on Instagram A post shared by C.V T (@lilyachty)

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“I met Andrew from MGMT, and I’ve been talking to a bunch of people. I met Kevin Parker [of Tame Impala], I’ve been talking to him. It’s just inspiring,” he said. “I got a bunch of side projects I’m going to drop before my next album. But what I’m trying to do on my next album, I’m trying to really take it there sonically.”

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Lil yachty is the latest rapper to start a podcast.

He displayed his interview skills back in February during 'A Moody Conversation' with Drake.

By Armon Sadler

Armon Sadler

Hip-Hop Reporter

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Lil Yachty has been gracing microphones for almost a decade and is now gearing up to use his voice in another medium. The 25-year-old revealed that he is launching a podcast this week.

The Atlanta rapper solicited topics and questions from his fans via Instagram on Tuesday (June 13). “Filming my first podcast,” he wrote. “Send me any questions u want me to answer / any advice u need. Haha let’s go.”

Lil Yachty follows in Joe Budden & N.O.R.E.’s footsteps, launches his own podcast https://t.co/52WCdDsvQr pic.twitter.com/JaulLXrBtv — HipHopDX (@HipHopDX) June 14, 2023

Lil Yachty, unlike Joe Budden and N.O.R.E , isn’t preceding his venture into podcasting with retirement. The eclectic artist released “ Strike (Holster) ” back in April and some fans believe it is the highly coveted “ song of the summer .”

“Strike” followed his fifth studio album Let’s Start Here . which came out in January and is regarded as his most experimental effort to date due to the psychedelic rock and funk elements. The 14-track LP featured Daniel Caesar , Teezo Touchdown, Justine Skye , Fousheé, and Diana Gordon.

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Lil Yachty Broke Down Why Friend And Frequent Collaborator Drake Is ‘Really, Really Smart’

Lil Yachty opened up about his close bond with Drake during a new conversation with Apple Music’s Zane Lowe, where he also touched on his new album, Let’s Start Here . The two rappers have collaborated even more in recent years, as Yachty had writing credits on Drake and 21 Savage’s 2022 album Her Loss , for “Jumbotron Sh*t Poppin,” “Privileged Rappers,” and more tracks.

“I love him to death,” Yachty said of Drake. “Yeah, that’s my guy, man… our relationship has just grown. I had a conversation with him after, and I was just telling him, ‘Man, this music that you made over this time period has affected so many people.'”

Yachty also revealed that any time Drake drops, he has trouble controlling his feels. So much so, that he shared a joke about how Drake’s music makes people call their exes during a conversation they had.

“I said, ‘Man, I remember there was a point in time when you were about to release music, and everyone was like, ‘Man, I’m about to call my ex. Like, oh man, I’m finna cry,”” he said. “That was a time period. And that’s when people thought when Drake was finna drop, you thought like, ‘Oh man, I’m about to get back with my ex-girlfriend.’ You felt like emotions were about to be pulled out of you.”

“At this point, I feel so close to him,” Yachty added. “I feel like whatever he does, I did it. If he wins something, I feel like I just won. He’s really, really smart. No matter how much he’ll act like he’s oblivious to his career and the things that he’s done, he knows what certain things and certain moments in his career mean to people.”

Watch Yachty’s full interview on Apple Music above.

Let’s Start Here is out now via Quality Control/Motown. Get it here .

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Lil Yachty On His Big Rock Pivot: ‘F-ck Any of the Albums I Dropped Before This One’

With his adventurous, psychedelic new album, 'Let's Start Here,' he's left mumble rap behind — and finally created a project he's proud of.

By Lyndsey Havens

Lyndsey Havens

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Lil Yachty, presented by Doritos, will perform at Billboard Presents The Stage at SXSW on March 16 .

Lil Yachty: Photos From the Billboard Cover Shoot

Someone has sparked a blunt in the planetarium.

It may be a school night, but no one has come to the Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, N.J., to learn. Instead, the hundreds of fans packed into the domed theater on Jan. 26 have come to hear Lil Yachty’s latest album as he intended: straight through — and with an open mind. Or, as Yachty says with a mischievous smile: “I hope y’all took some sh-t.”

For the next 57 minutes and 16 seconds, graphics of exploding spaceships, green giraffes and a quiet road through Joshua Tree National Park accompany Yachty’s sonically divergent — and at this point, unreleased — fifth album, Let’s Start Here . For a psychedelic rock project that plays like one long song, the visual aids not only help attendees embrace the bizarre, but also function as a road map for Yachty’s far-out trip, signaling that there is, in fact, a tracklist.

It’s a night the artist has arguably been waiting for his whole career — to finally release an album he feels proud of. An album that was, he says, made “from scratch” with all live instrumentation. An album that opens with a nearly seven-minute opus, “the BLACK seminole.,” that he claims he had to fight most of his collaborative team to keep as one, not two songs. An album that, unlike his others, has few features and is instead rich with co-writers like Mac DeMarco, Nick Hakim, Alex G and members of MGMT, Unknown Mortal Orchestra and Chairlift. An album he believes will finally earn him the respect and recognition he has always sought.

Sitting in a Brooklyn studio in East Williamsburg not far from where he made most of Let’s Start Here in neighboring Greenpoint, it’s clear he has been waiting to talk about this project in depth for some time. Yachty is an open book, willing to answer anything — and share any opinion. (Especially on the slice of pizza he has been brought, which he declares “tastes like ass.”) Perhaps his most controversial take at the moment? “F-ck any of the albums I dropped before this one.”

His desire to move on from his past is understandable. When Yachty entered the industry in his mid-teens with his 2016 major-label debut, the Lil Boat mixtape, featuring the breakout hit “One Night,” he found that along with fame came sailing the internet’s choppy waters. Skeptics often took him to task for not knowing — or caring, maybe — about rap’s roots, and he never shied away from sharing hot takes on Twitter. With his willingness and ability to straddle pop and hip-hop, Yachty produced music he once called “bubble-gum trap” (he has since denounced that phrase) that polarized audiences and critics. Meanwhile, his nonchalant delivery got him labeled as a mumble rapper — another identifier he was never fond of because it felt dismissive of his talent.

“There’s a lot of kids who haven’t heard any of my references,” he continues. “They don’t know anything about Bon Iver or Pink Floyd or Black Sabbath or James Brown. I wanted to show people a different side of me — and that I can do anything, most importantly.”

Let’s Start Here is proof. Growing up in Atlanta, the artist born Miles McCollum was heavily influenced by his father, a photographer who introduced him to all kinds of sounds. Yachty, once easily identifiable by his bright red braids, found early success by posting songs like “One Night” to SoundCloud, catching the attention of Kevin “Coach K” Lee, co-founder/COO of Quality Control Music, now home to Migos, Lil Baby and City Girls. In 2015, Coach K began managing Yachty, who in summer 2016 signed a joint-venture deal with Motown, Capitol Records and Quality Control.

“Yachty was me when I was 18 years old, when I signed him. He was actually me,” says Coach K today. (In 2021, Adam Kluger, whose clients include Bhad Bhabie, began co-managing Yachty.) “All the eclectic, different things, we shared that with each other. He had been wanting to make this album from the first day we signed him. But you know — coming as a hip-hop artist, you have to play the game.”

Yachty played it well. To date, he has charted 17 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 , including two top 10 hits for his features on DRAM’s melodic 2016 smash “Broccoli” and Kyle’s 2017 pop-rap track “iSpy.” His third-highest-charting entry arrived unexpectedly last year: the 93-second “Poland,” a track Yachty recorded in about 10 minutes where his warbly vocals more closely resemble singing than rapping. ( Let’s Start Here collaborator SADPONY saw “Poland” as a temperature check that proved “people are going to like this Yachty.”)

Beginning with 2016’s Lil Boat mixtape, all eight of Yachty’s major-label-released albums and mixtapes have charted on the Billboard 200 . Three have entered the top 10, including Let’s Start Here , which debuted and peaked at No. 9. And while Yachty has only scored one No. 1 album before ( Teenage Emotions topped Rap Album Sales), Let’s Start Here debuted atop three genre charts: Top Rock & Alternative Albums , Top Rock Albums and Top Alternative Albums .

“It feels good to know that people in that world received this so well,” says Motown Records vp of A&R Gelareh Rouzbehani. “I think it’s a testament to Yachty going in and saying, ‘F-ck what everyone thinks. I’m going to create something that I’ve always wanted to make — and let us hope the world f-cking loves it.’ ”

Yet despite Let’s Start Here ’s many high-profile supporters, some longtime detractors and fans alike were quick to criticize certain aspects of it, from its art — Yachty quote-tweeted one remark , succinctly replying, “shut up” — to the music itself. Once again, he found himself facing another tidal wave of discourse. But this time, he was ready to ride it. “This release,” Kluger says, “gave him a lot of confidence.”

“I was always kind of nervous to put out music, but now I’m on some other sh-t,” Yachty says. “It was a lot of self-assessing and being very real about not being happy with where I was musically, knowing I’m better than where I am. Because the sh-t I was making did not add up to the sh-t I listened to.

“I just wanted more,” he continues. “I want to be remembered. I want to be respected.”

Last spring, Lil Yachty gathered his family, collaborators and team at famed Texas studio complex Sonic Ranch.

“I remember I got there at night and drove down because this place is like 30 miles outside El Paso,” Coach K says. “I walked in the room and just saw all these instruments and sh-t, and the vibe was just so ill. And I just started smiling. All the producers were in the room, his assistant, his dad. Yachty comes in, puts the album on. We got to the second song, and I told everybody, ‘Stop the music.’ I walked over to him and just said, ‘Man, give me a hug.’ I was like, ‘Yachty, I am so proud of you.’ He came into the game bold, but [to make] this album, you have to be very bold. And to know that he finally did it, it was overwhelming.”

SADPONY (aka Jeremiah Raisen) — who executive-produced Let’s Start Here and, in doing so, spent nearly eight straight months with Yachty — says the time at Sonic Ranch was the perfect way to cap off the months of tunnel vision required while making the album in Brooklyn. “That was new alone,” says Yachty. “I’ve recorded every album in Atlanta at [Quality Control]. That was the first time I recorded away from home. First time I recorded with a new engineer,” Miles B.A. Robinson, a Saddle Creek artist.

Yachty couldn’t wait to put it out, and says he turned it in “a long time ago. I think it was just label sh-t and trying to figure out the right time to release it.” For Coach K, it was imperative to have the physical product ready on release date, given that Yachty had made “an experience” of an album. And lately, most pressing plants have an average turnaround time of six to eight months.

Fans, however, were impatient. On Christmas, one month before Let’s Start Here would arrive, the album leaked online. It was dubbed Sonic Ranch . “Everyone was home with their families, so no one could pull it off the internet,” recalls Yachty. “That was really depressing and frustrating.”

Then, weeks later, the album art, tracklist and release date also leaked. “My label made a mistake and sent preorders to Amazon too early, and [the site] posted it,” Yachty says. “So I wasn’t able to do the actual rollout for my album that I wanted to. Nothing was a secret anymore. It was all out. I had a whole plan that I had to cancel.” He says the biggest loss was various videos he made to introduce and contextualize the project, all of which “were really weird … [But] I wasn’t introducing it anymore. People already knew.” Only one, called “Department of Mental Tranquility,” made it out, just days before the album.

Yachty says he wasn’t necessarily seeking a mental escape before making Let’s Start Here , but confesses that acid gave him one anyway. “I guess maybe the music went along with it,” he says. The album title changed four or five times, he says, from Momentary Bliss (“It was meant to take you away from reality … where you’re truly listening”) to 180 Degrees (“Because it’s the complete opposite of anything I’ve ever done, but people were like, ‘It’s too on the nose’ ”) to, ultimately, Let’s Start Here — the best way, he decided, to succinctly summarize where he was as an artist: a seven-year veteran, but at 25 years old, still eager to begin a new chapter.

Taking inspiration from Dark Side , Yachty relied on three women’s voices throughout the album, enlisting Fousheé, Justine Skye and Diana Gordon. Otherwise, guest vocals are spare. Daniel Caesar features on album closer “Reach the Sunshine.,” while the late Bob Ross (of The Joy of Painting fame) has a historic posthumous feature on “We Saw the Sun!”

Rouzbehani tells Billboard that Ross’ estate declined Yachty’s request at first: “I think a big concern of theirs was that Yachty is known as a rapper, and Bob Ross and his brand are very clean. They didn’t want to associate with anything explicit.” But Yachty was adamant, and Rouzbehani played the track for Ross’ team and also sent the entire album’s lyrics to set the group at ease. “With a lot of back-and-forth, we got the call,” she says. “Yachty is the first artist that has gotten a Bob Ross clearance in history.”

From the start, Coach K believed Let’s Start Here would open lots of doors for Yachty — and ultimately, other artists, too. Questlove may have said it best, posting the album art on Instagram with a lengthy caption that read in part: “this lp might be the most surprising transition of any music career I’ve witnessed in a min, especially under the umbrella of hip hop … Sh-t like this (envelope pushing) got me hyped about music’s future.”

Recently, Lil Yachty held auditions for an all-women touring band. “It was an experience for like Simon Cowell or Randy [Jackson],” he says, offering a simple explanation for the choice: “In my life, women are superheroes.”

And according to Yachty, pulling off his show will take superhuman strength: “Because the show has to match the album. It has to be big.” As eager as he was to release Let’s Start Here , he’s even more antsy to perform it live — but planning a tour, he says, required gauging the reaction to it. “This is so new for me, and to be quite honest with you, the label [didn’t] know how [the album] would do,” he says. “Also, I haven’t dropped an album in like three years. So we don’t even know how to plan a tour right now because it has been so long and my music is so different.”

While Yachty’s last full-length studio album, Lil Boat 3 , arrived in 2020, he released the Michigan Boy Boat mixtape in 2021, a project as reverential of the state’s flourishing hip-hop scenes in Detroit and Flint as Let’s Start Here is of its psych-rock touchstones. And though he claims he doesn’t do much with his days, his recent accomplishments, both musical and beyond, suggest otherwise. He launched his own cryptocurrency, YachtyCoin, at the end of 2020; signed his first artist, Draft Day, to his Concrete Boyz label at the start of 2021; invested in the Jewish dating app Lox Club; and launched his own line of frozen pizza, Yachty’s Pizzeria, last September. (He has famously declared he has never eaten a vegetable; at his Jersey City listening event, there was an abundance of candy, doughnut holes and Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop-Tarts.)

But there are only two things that seem to remotely excite him, first and foremost of which is being a father. As proud as he is of Let’s Start Here , he says it comes in second to having his now 1-year-old daughter — though he says with a laugh that she “doesn’t really give a f-ck” about his music yet. “I haven’t played [this album] for her, but her mom plays her my old stuff,” he continues. “The mother of my child is Dominican and Puerto Rican, so she loves Selena — she plays her a lot . [We watch] the Selena movie with Jennifer Lopez a sh-t ton and a lot of Disney movie sh-t, like Frozen , Lion King and that type of vibe.”

Aside from being a dad, he most cares about working with other artists. Recently, he flew eight of his biggest fans — most of whom he has kept in touch with for years — to Atlanta. He had them over, played Let’s Start Here , took them to dinner and bowling, introduced them to his mom and dad, and then showed them a documentary he made for the album. (He’s not sure if he’ll release it.) One of the fans is an aspiring rapper; naturally, the two made a song together.

Yachty wants to keep working with artists and producers outside of hip-hop, mentioning the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and even sharing his dream of writing a ballad for Elton John. (“I know I could write him a beautiful song.”) With South Korean music company HYBE’s recent purchase of Quality Control — a $300 million deal — Yachty’s realm of possibility is bigger than ever.

But he’s not ruling out his genre roots. Arguably, Let’s Start Here was made for the peers and heroes he played it for first — and was inspired by hip-hop’s chameleons. “I would love to do a project with Tyler [The Creator],” says Yachty. “He’s the reason I made this album. He’s the one who told me to do it, just go for it. He’s so confident and I have so much respect for him because he takes me seriously, and he always has.”

Penske Media Corp. is the largest shareholder of SXSW ; its brands are official media partners of SXSW.

This story originally appeared in the March 11, 2023, issue of Billboard.

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Music Features

Lil yachty's delightfully absurd path to 'let's start here'.

Matthew Ramirez

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 29: Lil Yachty performs on the Stage during day 2 of Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival 2017 at Exposition Park on October 29, 2017 in Los Angeles, California. Rich Fury/Getty Images hide caption

LOS ANGELES, CA - OCTOBER 29: Lil Yachty performs on the Stage during day 2 of Camp Flog Gnaw Carnival 2017 at Exposition Park on October 29, 2017 in Los Angeles, California.

Lil Yachty often worked better as an idea than a rapper. The late-decade morass of grifters like Lil Pump, amidst the self-serious reign of Future and Drake (eventual Yachty collaborators, for what it's worth), created a demand for something lighter, someone charismatic, a throwback to a time in the culture when characters like Biz Markie could score a hit or Kool Keith could sustain a career in one hyper-specific lane of rap fandom. Yachty fulfilled the role: His introduction to many was through a comedy skit soundtracked by his viral breakout "1 Night," which tapped into the song's deadpan delivery and was the perfect complement for its sleepy charm. The casual fan knows him best for a pair of collaborations in 2016: as one-half of the zeitgeist-defining single "Broccoli" with oddity D.R.A.M., or "iSpy," a top-five pop hit with backpack rapper Kyle. Yachty embodied the rapper as larger-than-life character — from his candy-colored braids to his winning smile — and while the songs themselves were interesting, you could be forgiven for wondering if there was anything substantial behind the fun, the grounds for the start of a long career.

As if to supplement his résumé, Yachty seemed to emerge as a multimedia star. Perhaps you remember him in a Target commercial; heard him during the credits for the Saved by the Bell reboot; spotted him on a cereal box; saw him co-starring in the ill-fated 2019 sequel to How High . TikTok microcelebrity followed. Then the sentences got more and more absurd: Chef Boyardee jingle with Donny Osmond; nine-minute video cosplaying as Oprah; lead actor in an UNO card game movie. Somewhere in a cross-section of pop-culture detritus and genuine hit-making talent is where Yachty resides. That he didn't fade away immediately is a testament to his charm as a cultural figure; Yachty satisfied a need, and in his refreshingly low-stakes appeal, you could imagine him as an MTV star in an alternate universe. Move the yardstick of cultural cachet from album sales to likes and he emerges as a generation-defining persona, if not musician.

Early success and exposure can threaten anyone's career, none so much as those connected to the precarious phenomenon of SoundCloud rap. Yachty's initial peak perhaps seeded his desire years later to sincerely pursue artistry with Let's Start Here , an album fit for his peculiar trajectory, because throughout the checks from Sprite and scolding Ebro interviews he never stopped releasing music, seemingly to satisfy no one other than himself and the generation of misfits that he seemed to be speaking for.

But to oversell him as a personality belittles his substantial catalog. Early mixtapes like Lil Boat and Summer Songs 2 , which prophetically brought rap tropes and pop sounds into harmony, were sustained by the teenage artist's commitment to selling the vibe of a track as he warbled its memorable hook. It was perhaps his insistence to demonstrate that he could rap, too, that most consistently pockmarked his output during this period. These misses were the necessary growing pains of a kid still finding his footing, and through time and persistence, a perceived weakness became a strength. Where his peers Lil Uzi Vert and Playboi Carti found new ways to express themselves in music, Yachty dug in his heels and became Quality Control's oddball representative, acquitting himself on guest appearances and graduating from punchline rapper to respectable vet culminating in the dense and rewarding Lil Boat 3 from 2020, Yachty's last official album.

Which is why the buzzy, viral "Poland" from the end of 2022 hit different — Yachty tapped back into the same lively tenor of his early breakthroughs. The vibrato was on ten, the beat menaced and hummed like a broken heater, he rapped about taking cough syrup in Poland, it was over in under two minutes and endlessly replayable. Yachty has already lived a full career arc in seven years — from the 2016 king of the teens, to budding superstar, to pitchman, to regional ambassador. But following "Poland" with self-aware attempts at similar virality would be a mistake, and you can't pivot your way to radio stardom after a hit like that, unless you're a marketing genius like Lil Nas X. How does he follow up his improbable second chance to grab the zeitgeist?

#NowPlaying

Lil yachty, 'poland'.

Let's Start Here is Lil Yachty's reinvention, a born-again Artist's Statement with no rapping. It's billed as psychedelic rock but has a decidedly accessible sound — the sun-kissed warmth of an agreeable Tame Impala song, with bounce-house rhythms and woozy guitars in the mode of Magdalena Bay and Mac DeMarco (both of whom guest on the album) — something that's not quite challenging but satisfying nonetheless. Contrast with 2021's Michigan Boy Boat , where Yachty performed as tour guide through Michigan rap: His presence was auxiliary by function on that tape, as he ceded the floor to Babyface Ray, Sada Baby and Rio Da Yung OG; it was tantalizing curation, if not a work of his own personal artistry. It's tempting to cast Let's Start Here as another act of roleplay, but what holds this album together is Yachty's magnetic pull. Whether or not you're someone who voluntarily listens to the Urban Outfitters-approved slate of artists he's drawing upon, his star presence is what keeps you engaged here.

Yachty has been in the studio recording this album since 2021, and the effort is tangible. He didn't chase "Poland" with more goofy novelties, but he also didn't spit this record out in a month. Opener (and highlight) "The Black Seminole" alternates between Pink Floyd and Jimi Hendrix-lite references. It's definitely a gauntlet thrown even if halfway through you start to wonder where Yachty is. The album's production team mostly consists of Patrick Wemberly (formerly of Chairlift), Jacob Portrait (of Unknown Mortal Orchestra), Jeremiah Raisen (who's produced for Charli XCX, Sky Ferreira and Drake) and Yachty himself, who's established himself as a talented producer since his early days. (MGMT's Ben Goldwasser also contributed.) The group does a formidable job composing music that is dense and layered enough to register as formally unconventional, if not exactly boundary-pushing. Yachty frequently reaches for his "Poland"-inspired uber-vibrato, which adds a bewitching texture to the songs, placing him in the center of the track. Other moments that work: the spoken-word interlude "Failure," thanks to contemplative strumming from Alex G, and "The Ride," a warm slow-burn that coasts on a Jam City beat, giving the album a lustrous Night Slugs moment. "I've Officially Lost Vision" thrashes like Yves Tumor.

Yet the best songs on Let's Start Here push Yachty's knack for hooks and snaking melodies to the fore and rely less on studio fireworks — the laid-back groove of "Running Out of Time," the mournful post-punk of "Should I B?" and the slow burn of "Pretty," which features a bombastic turn from vocalist Foushee. That Yachty's vaunted indie collaborators were able to work in simpatico with him proves his left-of-center bonafides. It's a reminder that he's often lined his projects with successful non-rap songs, curios like "Love Me Forever" from Lil Boat 2 and "Worth It" from Nuthin' 2 Prove . That renders Let's Start Here a less startling turn than it may appear at first glance, and also underlines his recurring talent for making off-kilter pop music, a gift no matter the perceived genre.

At a listening event for the record, Yachty stated: "I created [this] because I really wanted to be taken seriously as an artist. Not just some SoundCloud rapper, not some mumble rapper. Not some guy that just made one hit," seemingly aware of the culture war within his own genre and his place along the spectrum of low- to highbrow. To be sure, whether conscious of it or not, this kind of mentality is dismissive of rap music as an artform, and also undermines the good music Yachty has made in the past. Holing up in the studio to make digestibly "weird" indie-rock with a cast of talented white people isn't intrinsically more artistic or valid than viral hits or a one-off like "Poland." But this statement scans less as self-loathing and more as a renewed confidence, a tribute to the album's collective vision. And people like Joe Budden have been saying "I don't think Yachty is hip-hop " since he started. So what if he wants to break rank now?

Lil Yachty entered the cultural stage at 18, and has grown up in public. It adds up that, now 25, he would internalize all the scrutiny he's received and wish to cement his artistry after a few thankless years rewriting the rules for young, emerging rappers. Let's Start Here may not be the transcendent psychedelic rock album that he seeks, but it is reflective of an era of genreless "vibes" music. Many young listeners likely embraced Yachty and Tame Impala simultaneously; it tracks he would want to bring these sounds together in a genuine attempt to reach a wider audience. Nothing about this album is cynical, but it is opportunistic, a creation in line with both a shameless mixed-media existence and his everchanging pop alchemy. The "genre" tag in streaming metadata means less than it ever has. Credit to Yachty for putting that knowledge to use.

Lil Yachty on His Rock Album ‘Let’s Start Here,’ Rapping With J. Cole, and What’s Next

By Jem Aswad

Executive Editor, Music

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Nowhere in the rap star manual does it say that a guaranteed formula for success is to “make psychedelic rock album with almost no rapping.” Yet that is exactly what Lil Yachty did with “Let’s Start Here,” his fifth full album but first rock project, after years as a top rapper with hits like “One Night,” “Minnesota,” “Oprah’s Bank Account” and guest spots on Kyle’s smash “iSpy,” Dram’s “Broccoli,” Calvin Harris’ “Faking It” and others.

Popular on Variety

Are these the first dates you’re playing behind this new album?

At the album listening session, people did not seem to know what to think.

No! I didn’t know what people would expect, but I knew they wouldn’t expect that. I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never been more confident with a body of work, so my chest was out. I didn’t think anyone would be like, “Oh, this sucks.” I genuinely felt like even if you didn’t like it, if you’re a music head, you’d have some kind of respect for the body of work itself, and for an artist to pivot and make something in such a complete, utter, opposite direction from what came before.

You said the people you played the album for included Drake, Kendrick Lamar and Tyler, the Creator — all of whom have made moves something like that in the past.

I’ll tell you, Tyler was a big reason for this album. He’ll call me at like eight o’clock in the morning — for no reason — and we’ll talk for hours. I was such a fan of [Tyler’s Grammy-winning 2019 album] “Igor,” his character and his way of creating a world — the color palettes, the videos, the billboards, the fonts. It’s all together. And I was like “How do you do that?” Because I was trying to figure out how to make a pop-funk-psychedelic-rock album cohesive, without it sounding like someone’s playlist. Then I started working on the visuals, and what I wanted to do was extremely expensive. To be quite honest, I don’t think my label believed in it enough to give me the budget that I truly needed for the visuals to bring this album to life, so I just made two videos.

Tyler and Drake both called me before my first show — I didn’t even tell them the show was happening but they both called me. That means something to me, because those people are my idols. I remember the day Kanye tweeted [Tyler’s 2011 single] “Yonkers,” I was in eighth grade. So them checking on me means a lot.

Is it a lonely feeling, sticking your neck out creatively like that?

Yeah, at first it was, but another thing Tyler taught me was not to be afraid of that. I was so scared before those first shows, like, “What if they don’t wanna hear it?” Tyler would always say, “Fuck it, make them feel you.”

Like, on the first show of this tour, I told the [sound crew], “Play psychedelic music before I go on, don’t play hip-hop” — but right before I went on they played a Playboi Carti song and I heard the crowd turning up and I was like, “Oh no, they’re gonna hate me!” And when I came out, I have in-ears [onstage monitors] and I have them set so you can’t really hear the crowd, it’s like dead silence. But I just kept going, and then my rap set comes and they go fucking crazy and that gives me confidence, and when I did the big rock outro on “Black Seminole,” they all started clapping. And for me it was the biggest “Oh, thank God,” because I couldn’t tell if they were fucking with it.

Is it exciting being in such a risky place creatively?

You were a teenager.

Exactly, But I still wanted respect, you know? I cared! My career was never solidified, I felt like folks were writing me off, so when I was making “Let’s Start Here,” I was at a point in my career where I did not have a hit rap record — it was like, “Man, this could really go left!” But I didn’t start thinking about that till I got deep into it. When I started, I was just like, “Man, I really love this stuff. Why don’t I hear anything like this now? No one makes psychedelic songs anymore.” I do psychedelics and I knew I wanted to make a psychedelic album. I love long songs, I love to just get deep into them — that’s why I love [Pink Floyd’s 1973 classic] “Dark Side of the Moon.”

I was on psychedelics when I first heard it and I would listen and just be like maaan. Like, bro, how can music make me feel like this? How can music make my brain just go to a new dimension? And how did you do that in 1973? I was like, can I do this? And obviously my answer was no. I mean, no offense, but how many rappers successfully made a rock album?

Almost none.

That’s what I’m saying. I think one of them was Kid Cudi’s rock album — I love it but a lot of people hated it. It’s not a full rock album, but it has a strong rock element to it.

Where did the rock influences come from, your parents?

My dad played a lot of Coldplay, a lot of Radiohead, John Mayer, Lenny Kravitz, a lot of John Coltrane, and I’m named after Miles Davis. My family loved James Brown, my dad loved Pharrell. He actually didn’t play Pink Floyd to me, but I’m glad I heard it as an adult.

I tried to make “Let’s Start Here” five years ago — “Lil Boat 2” was supposed to be “Let’s Start Here” with teenage emotions, but I was too young. I got too nervous to experiment on my rap record, and I didn’t have much experience or knowledge in alternative music. I met [“Let’s Start Again” collaborator] Jeremiah Raisan and tried again with the next album, but I chickened out and made another rap album. But when I had that conversation with Tyler, I was like “I’ve gotta do this, let me get that guy back.”

You had a hit with “Poland” — why isn’t it on the album?

That’s what I battled with, but at some point, you have to trust yourself. In the middle of making the album, “Poland” was a huge Internet hit and people were like, “You gotta put it on the album.” But I was like, it doesn’t fit! Just because it’s a hit record doesn’t mean it makes sense anywhere on this record. I was so focused on making my Black “Dark Side of the Moon.” And there is a small rap verse on the album, at the end of “Drive Me Crazy.”

You’ve said you recorded a hip-hop album after you finished “Let’s Start Here,” what’s it like?

What do you want to do next?

I get off tour around Christmas, and in January I’m starting a new album. I don’t know what it is yet, I don’t want to say “alternative.” I have rap album, but I just decided I’m gonna keep dropping songs [from it] until my next [non-rap] album is done.

Do you know who you want to work with on the next album?

So many people, obviously I want to do it on mostly with the band I made the record with, [writers/producers] Justin and Jeremiah Raisen, Jake Portrait and Patrick Wimberly. But I want to work with Donald Glover, I really want to work with Florence from Florence and the Machine. Sampha, Frank [Ocean], Buddy Ross, who worked with Frank. Chris Martin, Bon Iver, Solange, Mike Dean.

I’ve just been exploring, doing things that people wouldn’t expect. Even if I’m not the best at something, let’s just try, let’s explore, let’s create new things.

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50 Cent Confirms Dr. Dre Is Producing Eminem’s Forthcoming Album: ‘This S**t Got Some Heat on It'

The LP will be Eminem's first in four years, following his eleventh album, 'Music to Be Murdered By.'

According to 50 Cent , Eminem and Dr. Dre have more classics in the tank.

The G-Unit head honcho made a cameo in a surprise teaser for Em's upcoming album, The Death of Slim Shady (Coup de Grâce) , which went live on Thursday (Apr. 25). "I thought we were friends. He's not a friend; he's a psychopath," Fif hilariously says in the clip below. The forthcoming LP will explore what led to the demise of Slim Shady.

According to Fif, the album continues the powerhouse relationship between Em and Dr. Dre, who signed the Detroit rapper and primarily produced his earlier albums.

View this video on YouTube

On Instagram, Fif posted the aforementioned teaser and gave inside details about the collaboration. "This shit got some heat on it," he wrote. "Dre back at it!"

Although Dr. Dre has been listed as executive producer on most Eminem albums, excluding 2018's Kamikaze and 2020's Music to Be Murdered By, their recent work together has been slim in comparison to Em's prime. Still, the two artists have given each other mutual support throughout the years, with Eminem performing in Dre's all-star 2022 Super Bowl halftime show and the superproducer giving Em his props on SiriusXM’s  This Life of Mine with James Corden last month.

Dre still has numerous credits on Music to Be Murdered By, mainly on the album's intros and outros.

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As for Fif's friendship with Em, the latter has recently shown a desire to work on a full-length album together .

“Yo, I’m trying to get him to make another album so bad. We need another 50 album, like, really bad, bro," Em told DJ Whoo Kid on Shade 45 in January. Fifty’s on a roll right now. He’s been on a roll since the tour, and I told him he needs a fucking—whatever he needs from me, I’m here. That shit would be crazy, though, an album with me and him.”

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Lil Yachty’s love for pizza just landed him the ultimate partnership with Walmart. The Grammy-nominated rapper has joined forces with Deep Cuts and Richelieu Foods to launch his very own premium frozen pizza brand called Yachty’s Pizzeria.

The frozen pizzas made their exclusive debut into Walmart stores on Tuesday (Sept. 6), and include four flavors – Buffalo Style Chicken, Hot Honey Cheese, Pepperoni & Bacon, and Veggie Supreme. Each of the products come equipped with a cheddar cheese seasoned crust and will run consumers just under $7. They are also Yachty approved thanks to a taste test conducted by the “Speed Me Up” emcee and his friends.

“I’ve been pushing to make [pizza] a part of my brand since the beginning of my career,” said Yachty in an interview with People. “I recently got some new management that was able to really push and make it happen. It couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

The 25-year-old further explained that the cheesy cuisine holds a special place in his heart thanks to his mother. “The thing behind my love for pizza was, quite frankly, my mom worked two jobs. She was a very busy woman,” Yachty explained. “She’d be pretty tired when she came home, and she just always brought home a pizza. We went and picked up a pizza, or we baked a pizza. It became pretty standard in our life, and I loved it.”

For the “Broccoli” lyricist , Yachty Pizzeria is only the beginning. “I’ve done a lot of things, but I always get really geeked up when I see something of me in a grocery store,” Yachty expressed. “It’s happened over the years so many times, from deodorant and body spray to a cereal box… I’m more excited to venture out and do other types of things. Maybe pizza bagels and pizza rolls, and then pizza sticks, or just a different kind of crust, and type of s**t like that.”

Lil Yachty Explains Why He’s Celibate: “Women Probably Think I’m Gay”

Rapper Lil Yachty explained in a new interview why he’s no longer sleeping around with several women. He also shares that his newfound celibacy may cause women to think he’s gay.

“I don’t have sex, and I think women probably think I’m gay,” he said during a recent interview. “I don’t care that much,” he said. “I think a lot of times women think if they flying out to you like that we have to have sex. Or like that’s on my mind.”

“Sometimes I just like to see what someone is like,” he continued. “Or even if I can be around them ’cause I usually can’t.”

Yachty says he had so much sex before his spiritual awakening that he is over it.

“I just had so much sex that it’s like diluted to me,” he said. “Yea, like, it’s just… it’s not what it used to be. Like, I get off more on just really laughing. Like, ’cause laughing is so good to laugh and it’s a real laugh and it’s like yea, we’re laughing together.”

CLICK HERE to watch the interview

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Ryusuke Hamaguchi on How Douglas Sirk Influenced ‘Evil Does Not Exist’: ‘You Love and Hate the Characters at the Same Time’

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After years of making films in his native Japan, writer-director Ryusuke Hamaguchi found unexpected global success in 2021 with “Drive My Car.”

Adapted and expanded from short stories by Haruki Murakami, it’s an exquisite drama about a grieving theater director staging a multilingual “Uncle Vanya,” and his relationship with the pensive young woman employed to drive his cherry-red Saab.

Hamaguchi’s latest film, “ Evil Does Not Exist ” is to some extent a response to that overwhelming acclaim. “I knew that I wanted my next work to be very different and that somehow it was going to be important for me,” he said.

The project began when Eiko Ishibashi, the composer of “Drive My Car,” invited Hamaguchi to create a silent film to accompany a live musical performance. From this footage, Hamaguchi fashioned an 18-minute short named“Gift,” then expanded it into a feature film.

Abandoning the urban landscapes of “Drive My Car,” “ Evil Does Not Exist ” takes place in an isolated rural community, focusing on a widowed settler named Takumi (Hitoshi Omika) and his young daughter Hana (Ryô Nishikawa).

At first, Takami’s life seems idyllic — chopping firewood, collecting spring water from a nearby stream and often forgetting to collect Hana from school, who happily walks home alone through birch forests. Cinematographer Yoshio Kitagawa and sound designer Izumi Matsuno expertly capture the pristine silence and ambient noise of the forest, while Ishibashi’s score underlines the danger lurking beneath those beautiful surfaces.

The community’s serene existence is interrupted when urban developers announce plans to build a luxury camping site, promising big tourist dollars and community regeneration.

Somewhat unexpectedly, Mayuzumi and Takahashi express horror at the damage they’re about to cause. In a long conversation filmed in a moving car (a Hamaguchi specialty), they discuss their discontentment with their jobs and their desire to right wrongs by returning to the community. Evil, it seems, does not exist — all that’s needed to reform corporate greed is fresh air, a forest walk and a warming bowl of udon noodles.

The finale — a shocking and unexplained burst of Kubrickian violence — turns the story on its head. Since the film’s 2023 premiere at Cannes, where Hamaguchi won the Grand Prix, it’s become the most heavily debated ending since Darren Aronofsky’s 2017 eco-horror “mother!” Was evil there all the time, waiting to manifest? Or is violence necessary to correct greater evils?

IndieWire caught up with Hamaguchi, his producer Satoshi Takada and translator Aiko Masubuchi. Our interview feels similar to the play audition scenes in “Drive My Car” — intense concentration, long patient silences as Aiko translates back and forth, and repeated nods and murmurings of “Arigatō” (thank you).

IndieWire: Congratulations on “Evil Does Not Exist,” which is a wonderful film. The film is very specifically Japanese but also feels like a parable that could be set anywhere. Was it your intention to create a story that could resonate internationally?

Ryusuke Hamaguchi : I wasn’t conscious about wanting to have the film resonate internationally. I am an urbanite. I work and live in a city, and the film deals with water pollution issues arising outside of the city, which is not close to my ordinary life. However, the town hall meeting in the film was based on something that actually happened. When I heard about that, I thought about how nature has the ability to recuperate when it is given time, but when capitalist ventures happen, problems arise when there’s not enough time to replenish. That’s something that happens in my own life and in the film industry. When you build a [shooting] schedule, and don’t take into account the time for the crew to recuperate, that’s when overwork issues arise. Other places in the world that rely on similar systems also experience the same issues.

I think balance is the most difficult thing to achieve because it requires [us] to do two things going in different directions at the same time. It’s a theme I grapple with myself in my own life and in my filmmaking. When I make films, I have to think about the balance of how to make fiction out of reality. If it’s pulled into fiction too much, I might lose what is more lifelike about the reality that exists. The same thing can be said about actors’ performances. When it’s too close to reality, a certain kind of fiction can no longer be told. We’re required to grapple with those two ideas in order to make it work.

Speaking of balance, the success of “Drive My Car” launched you into a very long awards campaign, which I imagine took you away from your creative work. How did that experience affect your filmmaking choices for “Evil Does Not Exist”?

The film has an intensely poetic style, like a fairy tale, but the town hall sequences could be out of a Frederick Wiseman documentary.

I made a documentary about 10 years ago [“Storytellers,” 2013] about storytellers who tell folk tales. Often, those stories are telling something that can’t be said directly. Of all the films I’ve made, “Evil Does Not Exist” is perhaps closer to one of these folk tales. They have this ability to show something that is complex and not quite ethical. I think my own kind of storytelling has become closer to that feeling.

Your use of color in the film is remarkable. Hana’s yellow gloves and Takahashi’s bright orange coat are so out of place in the rural landscape. They almost work as warnings, like traffic lights, that something is wrong.

As I was making this film within a natural landscape, there were many things I couldn’t control, including the weather. I also knew I needed some way to make Hana and Takahashi stand out and move within the frame of the film without it being contrived. The story has documentary and fiction elements that intermingle with each other.

I am also a city dweller, so I understand the logic behind how they end up doing something that they don’t want to be doing. But to me, that’s different from whether I empathize with the characters. That leads me to think about Douglas Sirk’s films, where you love and hate the characters at the same time. There’s a part of me that empathizes with them, but then I also reject them. That back-and-forth process leads to being able to achieve a more balanced perspective.

This is the second time you’ve worked with Aiko Ishibashi. Can you talk about working with her to develop this project?

She’s the person who brought up the project and led it along. This film was really a result of me trying to write to her music. The fact that this film has no clear conclusion is really the result of her music, and the sensitivity and violence that exists within it.

Which films would you program to be watched alongside “Evil Does Not Exist”?

“Evil Does Not Exist” opens in U.S. theaters on Friday, May 3 from Sideshow/Janus Films.

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What happened to Deion Sanders’ Colorado castoffs? Revisiting a record-setting exodus

Chase Sowell walked into Colorado’s football facility on the Sunday after the 2023 spring game and saw more than a dozen teammates lined up against a wall.

As each player entered the head coach’s office and emerged within minutes enraged or in tears, the second-year receiver nervously pondered his fate.

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“We knew it was going to happen, but we didn’t know it was going to happen that soon,” Sowell said.

Deion Sanders, given his Power 5 head coaching shot in December 2022 after three successful years at Jackson State, had promised to clean house. He vowed talented transfers were on the way to replace anyone unprepared to play for him. And less than 24 hours after the Buffaloes’ ballyhooed ESPN-televised spring showcase, Sanders informed 20 scholarship players they were moving on.

“He didn’t sugarcoat it,” Sowell said. “He was telling me, ‘You’re coming off injury. I don’t think you will be one of the guys we need to start this year. We need guys that are going to be ready to play now.’”

Sanders didn’t need to use the word “cut.” Sowell understood it was time to pack his bags, enter the transfer portal and find a new home.

First-year coaches running off underperforming players are commonplace in college football. Dumping 20 in one day is not. By the end of the spring, 53 scholarship players transferred out of the program.

Colorado’s extreme roster makeover, unprecedented in modern college football history, yielded 87 newcomers and far more fascination about what Sanders could bring to Boulder. The Buffaloes were a downright phenomenon when they stunned TCU and started 3-0. They backslid hard, losing eight of nine Pac-12 games. Win or lose, Sanders got everyone watching – including his former players.

Where did they go?

Colorado’s castoffs went off on new journeys across college football. Fifteen matriculated to Power 5 programs. Twenty-two ended up on Group of 5 rosters, 11 went FCS or Division II, and two attended junior colleges. Three ex-Buffs went unsigned out of the portal and haven’t played since. And several had to fight the NCAA for the opportunity to keep playing.

Quarterback Owen McCown arrived at Colorado in 2022 with a freshman class desperate to turn around a program that had eight losing seasons over the past decade. The son of Minnesota Vikings assistant Josh McCown started three games as a freshman during the brutal 2022 season. Coach Karl Dorrell was fired after an 0-5 start. The Buffs got blown out almost weekly.

“Going through that rough season made us all close,” McCown said of his class. “And then, obviously, it all went away.”

Sanders walked into his first Colorado team meeting on Dec. 4, Tupac’s “All Eyez on Me” on the speakers, and delivered his first warning .

“I’m coming to restore, to replace, to re-energize some of y’all that are salvageable,” Sanders said. “I’m not going to lie. Everybody that’s sitting their butt in a seat ain’t going to have a seat when we get back.”

Sowell, a redshirt freshman from Houston, was unfazed.

“I don’t think he was being a d— about it,” Sowell said. “I think he was just being straight up: Prove to me that you can play.”

McCown skipped the team meeting. He was the third Colorado player to enter the transfer portal, going to UTSA, where he could start this fall. Sowell stayed to battle it out, but after season-ending surgery for a torn labrum, it was a tough time to be at his best. He was cleared to practice a week into spring ball.

Every day felt like a tryout. Sowell thought he had to be perfect to gain approval. He wasn’t himself. More stressed, more withdrawn. New coaching staffs can be disorienting for players, because they don’t know whom to trust. Sowell’s father grew up in Florida and revered Sanders, and Sowell didn’t want to disappoint his family by failing.

There was nowhere to hide. Cameras followed the team around constantly for Sanders’ Amazon documentary series and his son’s Well Off Media YouTube channel.

“It kinda felt like a reality TV show,” Sowell said.

It didn’t take long for returning Colorado players to figure out the narrative. Quarterback Shedeur Sanders , wide receiver/cornerback Travis Hunter and 19 more transfers were brought in for spring practice. They were the stars of the show.

“We felt like it was us vs. them instead of all of us together,” Sowell said. “That’s the best way I can put it. The new guys were going against the players that had already been there. It wasn’t a good environment to be in. It wasn’t a team environment.”

His freshman class was an inseparable group. The players lived on campus together, dined together and played pickup basketball together. They would return to the dorms at night that spring and talk openly about their predicament: What do we do?

On the morning of April 23, their group text blew up. Players were called into exit meetings with Sanders and told they couldn’t play at CU. One described the experience as going to see the Grim Reaper. Sowell’s meeting was his first one-on-one conversation with the head coach.

The following morning, Sowell said, players were locked out of Colorado’s football facility. They couldn’t grab their things from the locker room. They couldn’t grab a meal at the training table.

“When you’re gone, you’re gone,” Sowell said.

Sowell wanted to go where he could play as many snaps as possible. He picked ECU. It was a big move across the country for a Texas kid who knew hardly anything about the school. But he connected with receivers coach Dyrell Roberts and felt welcomed in his first team meeting with the Pirates .

They needed him, too. Sowell emerged as ECU’s No. 1 wide receiver, leading the team with 47 receptions for 622 yards and a touchdown.

Sowell says he’s happier than ever. His mom says he’s back to being his “true self” at ECU. A year later, he remains in touch with his freshman class in the group text.

Jordyn Tyson picked Arizona State . Dylan Dixson chose Missouri State. Grant Page and Simeon Harris are at Utah State. Anthony Hankerson and Van Wells left Colorado this offseason and are now at Oregon State.

Not one member of their 31-man signing class is still playing for Colorado.

Xavier Smith ’s sitdown with Sanders was later Sunday. By then, the redshirt freshman safety knew what to expect. His father encouraged him to hope for the best. But he didn’t even get a one-on-one. Defensive coordinator Charles Kelly brought Smith and safety Oakie Salave’a into the office together.

“We sat on the sofa, and he’s talking to us, but he’s not even looking at us,” Smith said. “I’m looking Coach Kelly dead in his eyes. (Sanders) said he felt like I should hit the portal. He didn’t want me to waste a year thinking I could earn a spot.

“I was actually getting mad, like tears coming to my eyes. Because, bro, you never even tried to get to know me.”

Smith wasn’t shocked he was cut, given his injury history. He’d broken his right leg during his senior season in high school and again in the spring while rehabbing. He played in one game in 2022 but missed the rest of the season with a hamstring injury. Now Smith was finally healthy and, as a young defensive back from Atlanta, eager to learn from his Hall of Fame coach.

Smith assumed Sanders would dump older players and embrace the young talent he inherited. During the team meeting, he told himself: He’s not talking about me. I ain’t leaving.

During the spring, Smith felt more like an extra in the background of the reality show. He tried to make the most of second-team reps and made plays in the spring game but struggled to get Sanders’ attention. So as he sat on that couch and listened to Kelly encourage him to leave, sure, there was frustration.

“He was destroying guys’ confidence and belief in themselves,” Smith said. “The way he did it, it could’ve been done with a little more compassion.”

For Smith and many of the inexperienced players cut by Colorado, the spring transfer window was unnerving. Schools have limited scholarships available entering the summer, and it’s tougher to earn offers with limited game and practice tape. Among the 30 scholarship players who left the program after the spring game, 20 continued playing at the FBS level but only nine joined Power 5 programs.

Smith regained his confidence at Austin Peay. The FCS program in Clarksville, Tenn., provided an opportunity to play right away, and coach Scottie Walden won him over with his relentless enthusiasm. Smith caught up quickly to earn a starting role and Freshman All-America recognition on a 9-3 team that won its conference.

At the end of the season, Walden landed the head job at UTEP . Smith re-entered the transfer portal and followed him to El Paso.

“It’s rare you meet a head coach who genuinely wants to see every player on his roster succeed,” Smith said.

Jake Wiley did not get cut. But he wasn’t looking to stay.

The offensive tackle from Aurora, Colo., spent four years with the Buffaloes and saw it all. He committed to Mike MacIntyre in 2018, redshirted during Mel Tucker’s lone season, became a two-year starter under Dorrell and had five different offensive line coaches.

“That’s not a normal number,” Wiley said.

He stayed for the spring to finish his degree and to see if he fit with the new staff. On cut day, Wiley received an ominous text.

“In our O-line group chat, one of the offensive line coaches texted the group and said, ‘Good luck fellas,’” Wiley said, “and then he just removed all of them. It said these five people were removed from the chat. We were like, ‘Huh? What happened?’”

Two days after they entered the portal, Wiley joined them. He said players who survived the cut still felt unwanted and expendable. He was one of seven returning starters who departed that spring along with running back Deion Smith ( BYU ), receiver Montana Lemonious-Craig (Arizona), defensive linemen Jalen Sami ( Michigan State ) and Na’im Rodman ( Washington State ), cornerback Nikko Reed (Oregon) and safety Tyrin Taylor ( Memphis ).

“Let me tell you this, because this is something you may not know,” Sanders said last November on “The Dan Patrick Show.” “Maybe 20 kids we may have sat down with and said, ‘We may head in a different direction; I don’t know if this is gonna work out.’ Everybody else quit. They quit. You can’t hold me responsible.”

Wiley was overwhelmed by the number of calls he received upon entering the portal and narrowed his list to UCLA , Duke and Purdue . He flew to Los Angeles to watch a spring practice and was told the Bruins needed a tackle. Wiley loved the campus and liked staying in the Pac-12. It was an easy decision.

He didn’t learn he was moving to guard until the day before preseason camp. That’s a lot of new technique to learn in addition to a new offensive scheme. Wiley rotated in at right guard in UCLA’s first four games but then saw his playing time drop off considerably.

For many of his fellow ex-Buffs, this was a common issue. Among the 37 transfers who departed after Sanders was hired and landed at FBS schools, 23 did not start a game last season. Three former teammates – running back Jayle Stacks , receiver Maurice Bell and cornerback Nigel Bethel Jr. – went unsigned and didn’t play last season. Bell is now a trainer and working in real estate back home in California.

Going from playing to watching wasn’t fun, and Wiley admits he might’ve handled the letdown poorly if he were younger. He tried to respond with maturity.

“I wasn’t going to be that guy that was really complaining a lot or pouting and being negative,” he said. “If I wasn’t going to play, I wasn’t going to sit there and be a drain on the team.”

Wiley re-entered the portal in late November and relocated to Houston, where he’s once again playing tackle and helping a new coaching staff set a standard.

Wiley says he’ll always be a Colorado alum and fan, and he couldn’t help but marvel at the spectacle Sanders created.

“I never would’ve ever thought that Lil Wayne would be running the CU Buffs out of the tunnel,” Wiley said.

While his new Miami (Ohio) teammates enjoyed a day at Universal Studios in Orlando, Fla., Maddox Kopp testified via Zoom in a U.S. District Court hearing in West Virginia.

At the conclusion of the Dec. 13 hearing, District Judge John P. Bailey issued a 14-day temporary restraining order against the NCAA, granting immediate eligibility to college athletes who’ve transferred multiple times. The TRO halted the organization’s attempts to enforce a one-time transfer rule. And it was a former Colorado quarterback who helped make history.

Kopp was required to sit out the 2023 season as a two-time transfer. So were defensive back Tayvion Beasley ( San Diego State ), tight end Seydou Traore ( Mississippi State ) and offensive linemen Yousef Mugharbil ( NC State ) and Noah Fenske (Southern Illinois). Beasley, Traore and Mugharbil came to Colorado as transfers with Sanders and were gone by the end of the spring.

Kopp was sitting in the front row when Sanders arrived. He’d trained with Shedeur Sanders and knew what came next. In his first visit with the QBs, Sanders told them Shedeur was on the way and their job was to make him better.

“I was just sitting there thinking, it is what it is ,” Kopp said. “I need to find a new home and a place that wants me.”

Kopp was starting over again after one year at Houston and one at Colorado. He transferred to Miami (Ohio) and built his case for an eligibility waiver.

The NCAA significantly altered its waiver criteria in January 2023. Getting run off by a school was no longer a valid justification. Kopp needed to provide a documented medical or safety-related reason for leaving. His attorney argued Colorado did not make accommodations for learning disabilities Kopp has dealt with since elementary school. The NCAA denied his waiver and then denied his appeal in August.

Fenske went through the same ordeal. The offensive lineman left Iowa in 2021 for mental health reasons and was a backup with the Buffaloes for two seasons. He didn’t like what he heard in Sanders’ team meeting.

Fenske rode back from the meeting with lineman Alex Harkey and said he was entering the portal. Harkey told him he was overreacting. Harkey was cut after the spring game and is now at Texas State.

“There’s not one person that watches that video – even the people who love him – and says he’s not gonna sh–can everybody,” Fenske said.

Fenske transferred to FCS Southern Illinois and was set to be the Salukis’ starting left tackle last fall. He submitted his waiver request in July and waited 70 days for a rejection in September, three games into the season. He kept preparing to play, believing he’d win on appeal. The final denial from the NCAA came Oct. 17, days before Southern Illinois faced No. 1 South Dakota State. Fenske broke down in tears in coach Nick Hill’s office upon learning the news.

“It didn’t matter if we had letters of recommendation from (Colorado athletic director) Rick George and (Colorado interim coach) Mike Sanford,” he said. “It didn’t matter if we had proof that I was seeking counseling and wasn’t getting it. They decided that my mental health was not dangerous enough to myself that I needed to leave there.”

The eligibility cases of North Carolina’s Tez Walker and several men’s basketball players generated national attention and political pressure. Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost led a seven-state antitrust suit filed in December.

Though Kopp was eligible to play in the Cure Bowl against Appalachian State since the school semester had ended, he was eager to push for reform and help athletes avoid the NCAA’s complicated waiver process. Xavier Smith was able to transfer to UTEP after the TRO and said he’s thankful Kopp went the extra mile.

“It takes the power out of their hands,” Kopp said of the NCAA. “If they’re gonna make these rules, I just want them to be consistent.”

You know you’re married to the game when you get a restraining order against the NCAA to play in the Avocados From Mexico Cure Bowl. 🫡 pic.twitter.com/gYGOk8CEHC — The Walmart Wolverine (@TheWalMartWolv) December 16, 2023

Empowered by the court ruling and the NCAA’s subsequent adoptions of new rules permitting unlimited transfers, more college football players are entering the portal than ever before. At Colorado, more than 30 Buffs are moving on, including 18 transfers Sanders brought in to replace those he cut.

Their exits have not brought the same shock-and-awe fanfare of last spring’s purge, but the motivations are similar: Sanders retooling with eyes on dramatic improvement while his departing players seek better situations. The head coach joked on a podcast this month that the portal is akin to room service.

“I can order what I want,” Sanders said.

For the Colorado players he didn’t want, those 53 transfers whose locations and lives changed over the past 12 months, the bitterness is beginning to wear off.

“My experience with Deion wasn’t one where I’m going to go bash him,” Sowell said. “There were things I agreed with that he did and things I didn’t agree with that he did. But that’s like any head coach. When he came in and made his decisions, I trusted God and I said everything happens for a reason.

“And I got to meet Deion Sanders, so I can’t really complain. I got to meet one of the best to ever do it.”

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic ; photo: Ryan King / Getty Images)

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Max Olson covers national college football for The Athletic. He previously covered the Big 12 and recruiting for ESPN.com. Follow Max on Twitter @ max_olson