Lil Yachty has made his long-awaited musical debut on Saturday Night Live and performed a pair of songs from his latest album for the late-night show.
On Saturday (April 1), the 25-year-old rapper — alongside singer-songwriter Diana Gordon — performed the tracks “drive ME crazy!” and “the BLACK seminole” — two songs off of his fifth studio album, Let’s Start Here — during his visit to NBC’s famous 30 Rockefeller Plaza studio in New York.
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In his performance for “the BLACK seminole,” Yachty dressed in a modest outfit while belting out the classic rock influenced tune into a pitch-correction microphone.
“What’s wrong? What’s wrong, Mr. Man/ Your eyes are low/ And you’re walking with both hands on your head/ His response, he’s on a clean, clean high/ Both feet up on the ground/ But his head’s way, way, way in the sky,” Lil Yachty sang.
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For his performance for “drive ME crazy!,” Lil Yachty returned to the stage alongside Gordon in an oversized Eskimo hat, a semi-loose long sleeve shirt and shorts. Gordon opened up the performance with a yodel-like vocal arrangement over the upbeat melody. Yachty then stepped up to the musical plate and sang his verse in a style reminiscent of the late Prince Be of P.M. Dawn.
Check out both performances below:
According to Stereogum, Diana Gordon played a contributing role to the vocal sessions during the recording of the album.
It was first announced that Lil Boat would be performing on the legendary late-night sketch show earlier this month, with Abbott Elementary creator and Emmy winner Quinta Brunson handling hosting duties.
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With his SNL performance and previous interviews and social media messages, Yachty has made it a point to prove his naysayers wrong. His latest album, Let’s Start Here, marked a drastic sonic shift for the “Minnesota” hitmaker, swapping his signature trap sound for a more ambitious, psychedelic rock experiment.
In a 3.4-rated review of the album, HipHopDX’s Rebecca Barglowski said the album “is desperate to exalt the rapper from the categorization of Hip Hop as it once confined him.”
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She continued: “The truth is that as ‘groundbreaking’ as Yachty continues to say this album is, such a sentiment also ignores rap’s present affinity for transformation – for breaking and bending itself to redefine that which it can be. In 2023, Yachty is not the first person to take a stylistic turn into left field.”
“But, it sounds good, and that’s the most important thing – allowing Yachty to dabble in a fresh palette of songs that he’s hinted at, encouraging him to take the risk that predated this release.”
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At a listening party for the project in New York City in January shortly before its release, Yachty spoke about his desire to be taken seriously as an artist and wanting to move away from having the “mumble rapper” tag attached to his artistry.
“This album is so special and dear to me,” he said. “I think I created it just because I really wanted to be taken serious as an artist, you know? Not just some SoundCloud rapper, not some mumble rapper, not some guy that just made one hit.”
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