“Seven years later and I got the same friends,” Lil Yachty croaks on “All In,” an enjoyable posse cut near the end of Summer Songs 2. Seven years ago I was 20, two years older than Yachty is now, and I remain friends with only about 25 percent of my social circle from back then—where does the time go? While Yachty is rapping about coming up to the top with his team intact, the line invites personal interpretation: What were you doing seven years ago? What was your life like at 18?
Age plays a huge part in enjoying (or not enjoying) Yachty’s music. He shouts “We are the youth!” on the mixtape’s very first track; he calls himself the “king of the teens” on another song that sounds like superhero theme music. The Atlanta rapper has made some uncomfortable appearances on New York radio shows like “The Breakfast Club” and “Ebro in the Morning,” where he was prodded and treated with a whiff of condescension—the weird kid in class with red dreads who embodies a new movement that strikes fear in older people. It all seems like an unfair burden put upon a teenager who doesn’t really deserve such high-strung generational introspection and skepticism. While Summer Songs 2 is better than Lil Boat, his breakthrough release from earlier this year, the music is still too flimsy to garner such “what is wrong with these kids?” hand-wringing.
That said, of his current burgeoning peers—guys like Lil Uzi Vert, Playboi Carti, 21 Savage, and Kodak Black—Yachty is looking like the one most poised for crossover success. His dominant feature on the D.R.A.M. song “Broccoli” sits at #34 on the Billboard Hot 100, and his light-hearted persona often shines on songs that are loose and feature less rapping. Which is fine. He gets in trouble, though, when gunning for some kind of respectability in traditional hip-hop circles.
“For Hot 97” mostly falls flat, because Yachty simply can’t keep up with the beat. He doesn’t command a verse as strongly as most of the guests on the tape, like Chicago’s G Herbo, who flattens “Up Next 3,” and Offset, who offers a silky verse on the woozy banger “DipSet.” In contrast, Yachty frequently falls off-tempo—it can be unpleasant to listen to. His high-pitched voice works in his favor on slower cuts but doesn’t blend well when he’s shouting and lagging behind the track. It’s a bit discomfiting—you want to root for the kid, but it’s frustrating to hear him undermining his strengths so frequently.
Summer Songs 2 clicks into focus on spacey, weirder songs like the slow-blooming “IDK,” where Yachty grapples with sudden fame, and the despondent breakup jam “Yeah Yeah,” which features the oddly memorable passage: “Dick so good turn that ho to George/That mean she get curious.” Yachty cops to being a student of Soulja Boy and Lil B (see the #based philosophy of “Life Goes On”) but he’s also got a Tyler, the Creator sense of humor, from his irreverent videos to opening the album by impersonating his “uncle,” Darnell Boat, who sounds like a character from the “Loiter Squad” cutting-room floor. And something about the tape’s late run of songs, when things slow down and the beats wilt, reminds me of chillwave’s idyllic vision of the West Coast, all beaches and girls and sun-soaked afternoons—potent, dreamy stuff that appeals directly to the sensibilities of teens and college loafers. Yachty is delivering an aesthetic, which is catnip to some (mostly those 25 and under) and repellent to others. But if you’re locked in, Summer Songs 2 can be a lot of fun.
On closer “So Many People,” after playing a series of wide-eyed, wistful testimonials to his music, Yachty lowers his voice to a near whisper while a simple, forceful drum pattern kicks—a startling moment of vulnerability, even when he boasts, “I just put both of my feet in the door/I did it two times faster than these other niggas.” It’s the kind of pathos you get from young adults—the confidence is there, but the insecurity and uncertainty of teenagedom still looms. If Summer Songs 2 buckles under the weight of an Apple Music imprimatur and deafening hype, try to think about being 18 again, when you only wanted to listen to yourself.
