Lil Yachty and James Blake has gone left—more left than ever that is.
Since pivoting from rap to psychedelic rock with his alt-escapade Let’s Start Here in 2023, the Concrete Boyz founder has continued to venture further from his traditional sound.
In addition to appearances on tracks with Chief Keef, Kid Cudi, Faye Webster, YungBlud, Fred Again.. and more, Boat and prolific singer-composer James Blake have teamed up for BAD CAMEO—a collaborative effort a first of its kind.
Released on Friday (June 28), the 10-track escapade depicts a meshing of worlds unheard in either Blake or Yachty’s current discography’s. Psychedelic, ethereal and wildly abstract, Boat and James find control within the chaos of BAD CAMEO—highlighted by tracks in “Twice,” “Missing Man,” “Woo” and “Midnight,” among others.
Ultimately, the pair take us to the edge of a dream that we still haven’t woke up from, melding sounds from the corners of all genres over the course of a compact 44 minutes. “We got a really vulnerable side of Yachty in some of those sessions,” Blake said in an interview with Complex, divulging the profoundness and creative freedom both artists’ championed during its production.
“I think James has worked with a quite substantial amount of hip hop artists,” Yachty said in a video announcing the project in February. “But this project is so left for both of us. Then, aside from the one picture that James posted, which he doesn’t have many followers actually, I don’t think people know that we know each other exist.”
In the aforementioned quote, Yachty is mentioning a photo he and Blake took in March 2023 at a CMYK event, where the pair teased a track off the newly-released LP. Blake recently earned another GRAMMY win for his work on Killer Mike’s “Scientists & Engineers,” also contributing to Travis Scott’s UTOPIA (which was also nominated for Rap Album Of The Year).
Blake’s worked with prolific emcees such as Kendrick Lamar, Travis Scott, Future, Metro Boomin, Ab-Soul and now Lil Yachty. Yachty’s foray into a more timeless, alternative soundscape has not only seen him demand more out of himself, but hip-hop as as a whole.
“The state of hip-hop right now is a lot of imitation. It’s a lot of quick, low-quality music being put out,” Lil Yachty told Rolling Stone last year. “It’s a lot less risk-taking, it’s a lot less originality… People are too safe now. I rather take the risk than take the L.”
Listen to ‘BAD CAMEO’ below!