
Lil Yachty
The Zane Lowe Interview Series
Creating an Immersive Experience
They discuss the concept behind their album and how it aims to take listeners on a journey, providing a unique and immersive experience. They address criticisms of their lyrics, emphasizing that their intention is to create a feeling rather than profound lyrics. They also express their desire to introduce kids to different types of music and reach a wider demographic.
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Speaker 4
You know, what myself and my family, my extended family, my chosen
Speaker 8
family, what we all
Speaker 3
the conclusion we were coming to
Speaker 4
was that this was an immersive experience that
Speaker 5
we were
Speaker 3
enjoying
Speaker 2
my mics gone down. I think. I mean, anybody else? Yeah. All right. Cool. We're going to get into a song. Come back. That's kind of tight. Oh, there I am on that. Sound of kind of tight though for a second.
Speaker 3
By the way, talk about Yachty seeing through the time space continuum. He's the only one not wearing headphones. Yeah. He noticed that. Yeah. Why? Because I like my hair and
Speaker 5
I want to show it off. I didn't want to have a hat on. I
Speaker 2
mean, I didn't want to. There was a trick, not that I'm suggesting we're headphones, especially after that. But
Speaker 3
often that is the move. Yeah, that looks crazy. No, no, that
Speaker 5
looks crazy. They both look kind of wild.
Speaker 2
Anyway, what I was saying was it's, it's, it's immersive. It's not just a selection
Speaker 5
of songs. Like, I was the idea. Yeah. It wasn't like,
Speaker 1
this was the first album I made where I was
Speaker 5
like, OK.
Speaker 1
It's weird because I was like, I want to have purpose. But out doing too much purpose, right? So like what I mean by that is like, it gives you this feeling. If you sit with it and listen to it in its entirety, but it wasn't meant to, like, when it's done, you're like, Oh, I get like, he was trying to say, like, it's not, I didn't make it like that. It was just for like an experience. But it wasn't some shit was like, you listen and you just get these. You're looking for the just most profound lyrics and like, no, it was for like, to create like a moment or like take you from put you into a moment. But it wasn't like I wasn't trying to
Speaker 3
like answer any holistic gravitational
Speaker 1
like I read
Speaker 5
so much on just.
Speaker 1
I think I've read seen every fucking review read every. Every Reddit
Speaker 5
passage, everything. And I think a lot of people I saw some other times people
Speaker 1
say, Oh, yeah, just the lyrics like like there weren't any bars. And I'm like, like it wasn't, I didn't make it in mind to like, like I wasn't trying to like, but
Speaker 3
this has been the thing that's the constant throughout your whole career from a young person. You came out, I feel like you were creating experience through your music searching for a feeling and people wanted to put you in that other thing.
Speaker 1
I was just a kid just doing what I liked. You know, I was just, I was just like a teenager turned to like a young man just doing what I like. I wasn't trying to make no experience. I was just like making music, you know, this album I made was such a like specific like intention.
Speaker 7
Like everything
Speaker 1
it like it's tight. I mean, I've had this album for almost two years now. So I started it almost two years ago. So it's tight to see people like just feel what I was trying to like make them feel through music. Because I mean, like I just, I know it was, I know you could do it because it's happened to me. So I was trying to give that moment to people where they just like and really to the kids because these kids don't know a lot of music just to be realistic. They they're stuck in the current, you know, time. And that's fine. But it's like, man, you've missed out on so many areas of amazing music. So I want to like really show the kids and other side how far you can go.
Speaker 5
Yeah, seriously,
Speaker 1
you can go just through sonic. Yeah, you know, through sonic waves, you know, so I feel like the point is getting the crock and I mean, I can keep going. It's a million reasons why I made the record. I mean, but yeah, I mean, I just want also I mean
Speaker 3
clear the
Speaker 2
difference. Things,
Speaker 1
you know, I also wanted to I just
Speaker 5
I wanted to
Speaker 1
reach a different demographic, you know, just. I don't know why, but I did. I just want to be like, I want to like just like have fans all across the board. You know, I didn't want to like just have like an 18 year old fans, which are cool. I love them to death. Yeah, but I thought it would be tight to see fucking a dad or a grandpa. It
Speaker 5
worked. It worked
Speaker 2
because I've had people like that come up to me and who've heard the album. Yeah.
Speaker 3
And have said, I don't know how I found myself listening to this Yodie album, but it's just the greatest. Yeah, I've gotten the most backhand and compliments I've ever come on.
Speaker 1
Like, yeah, man, I mean, like I just like would have never listened.
Speaker 8
It's okay.
Speaker 2
Like you're in the right place, bro, because because the most common compliment I've gotten up to a point in my life, which has thankfully seemed to have gone away since I've come to America was no matter what anyone says about you, Zane, I always say, you know, you're really good at what you do. But just like, it's like, it's
Speaker 5
like, well, wait,
Speaker 2
what are people saying about me?
Speaker 1
Now they're way more specific for me. They're like, yeah, man, I mean, that guy, man. I knew he was going to
Speaker 5
be a one eight one. But I mean, yeah, he did it.
Speaker 9
You know, that's the
Speaker 2
closest thing to an apology you're going to get, right?
Speaker 5
I just like, OK, what what
Speaker 6
makes you consume the criticism? Because you say you got it ready to post and you read. Why though, like what drives you to read the criticism or consume it or whatever? Or the compliments. Yeah.
Speaker 5
I'm just interested in what people think and I don't do anything. That is a household there. So I don't really, I swear, I'll do shit. But I'm. He's literally checking. Yeah, I just I just stay home.
Speaker 1
And I just I'm just curious. You know, I mean, it doesn't affect me. Yeah, hurt me at all. Like I like, I'm hate is like, it's I respected because like everyone's entitled to an own opinion. But I made this album for people, you know, like for like, for like, like
Speaker 7
I said,
Speaker 1
for a momentary bliss, you know, like that's genuinely the reason. Like that's not why I made it. But when I made it, I was like, whoa, this is what I've done. Like I really like. Take people from like, you know, like the reality for a bit, you know. And first it was I was trying to do it like just make this the first thing. I was like, oh, man, I just want to do this real trip.
Speaker 2
Want to sound cool? Want to sound cool?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I just want to be
Speaker 5
super trippy and cool.
Speaker 1
And then I was like, wait,
Speaker 5
I'm making like a like this is like because
Speaker 1
I would listen to it and I would like sometimes get where I am. Like,
Speaker 3
what was the what was the song that in process during the making of the record where you had that moment of clarity that had become something more?
Speaker 1
Was there one moment it wasn't until after because we did the records. And then I had to. We had to transition them. We had to put it together. Yeah. So once we started working on the middles, like all of the twins and connecting it was when it started to like become this thing. Because at first you just had because if you take the songs apart, some of them sound the same, but they're all over the place. Like, you know, like black, similar sounds, nothing like say something. Like I still don't even know how they work together on the same project. But like, so like if you take them apart, it just sounds like a playlist, just a bunch of different songs. But once we put them together and make it really weird and like, just connect them, then it takes you to like
Speaker 3
this universe. It's immersive. Yeah. You achieved it.
Speaker 2
It is absolutely something that you put on. And you want to stay with it because of that. All of those facts, because you know, by the halfway through it, two thirds of the way through it, you're like, I feel better than I did five minutes ago. I feel better than I did 25 minutes ago.
Speaker 3
I'm not distracted. I'm not one's not competing with the other. There's just this harmony across it. I want to also just want to make a project that you
Speaker 1
didn't have to skip, which is opinionated, skipping is opinionated. But I thought it would be super cool if I made a project that like, obviously everyone's not going to agree on it. But like, the masses could play it from top, like this is my first album or like, and like stats where like people are, you can see people are playing it through. Yeah.
Speaker 8
You really consume all this stuff, bro.
Speaker 1
Well, I just, it's just cool.
Speaker 5
It's me. It's like, it's almost like if someone was a fucking, I don't
Speaker 1
know. I guess like basketball players, look at their stats and watch their, you know what I'm saying? It's like, it's my life, it's my career. Yeah. And like I said,
Speaker 5
I don't do anything else. I don't really care about anything else. I don't go outside. I don't party. I don't drink. Have you, have you always, because it seems like,
Speaker 6
now I'm retroactively looking at your career and going back, because you kept saying it like, I was a kid and I just kind of having fun. You know, have you always looked at yourself like that? Like, I don't take this serious. It's just music. I'm having a good time. I don't want you to say I don't take this serious because I've always taken this serious.
Speaker 1
But where I want, what I wanted to be perceived as an artist, change, you know, so it's not that I didn't take it serious, but it was just like, I didn't, I wasn't trying to be like the best rapper or like, or like the most creative artist or like, I wasn't even trying to make music. I didn't even care. And I wasn't thinking about music last in 10 years. I didn't care. I was just making music, you know, but I still cared. And then I was like, a little bit older. Then I started to care about how people perceived me as a rapper, you know, and that was my earlier career. And that lasted for a few years where I was like, oh, I got to show people like a rap. Because I love rap, you know, and I think it's just my generation got like my rap generation got a bad rap.
Speaker 6
And you were the avatar of that for a
Speaker 1
lot of people? Because I was, I feel like I probably had the best public speaking. So I'm the one who did all the interviews and I would, you know, and I was also like very new. So sometimes I would say some things that may have, may have not been the best thing to say. And that got riled up a lot of people. It
Speaker 3
was colorful to do. There was a charisma attached to what you were doing. There was an element, there was a cartoonish approach to the way you were marketing yourself. So it got attention. Yeah, I think, I think you were one of the first people I really felt like from your generation that came in, understood how to market yourself
Speaker 4
originally.
Speaker 2
And I think we've seen that now reach an absolute zenith with someone like Nas X, who to me as a marketing genius, as well as being a great artist, taking nothing away from a skill set, which he continues to prove time and time again. But his marketing abilities, I mean, I was joked about how Old Town Road was the most scalable business model of that year, because he made it for 200 bucks and probably made 200 million. I mean, it's like the margin that he made on that one song was ridiculous. That's how it's crazy. And you know, so you understood that I felt like, and I think that that's part of what got
Speaker 4
that
Speaker 3
attention in the wrong way was people like, I'm seeing him, but I'm not hearing him. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 5
it's funny as fuck. Yeah, because the demodemographic was so fucking young. Yeah.
Speaker 1
So, but that, but I was still in everyone's face. So have you seen, you would see me more than you hear me probably. Yeah.
Speaker 3
But we had a really interesting conversation around that time when you came in here.
Speaker 2
It was actually around the time, and I mean, this is long water under the bridge, but it was around the time that my friend and colleague here was having another conversation with you on Heart97, and you came in here, and
Speaker 3
we were trying to find a balance.
Speaker 2
And one of the things that we talked about was just how deep your influences went.
Lil Yachty joins Zane and the team in the studio to talk about his latest album “Let’s Start Here.”.