Offbeat –– CFUV 101.9FM’s music column
Graphic by JP Meldrum.
Lil Yachty, if nothing else, survived the quick-to-fall-off abyss of hip-hop by going in many different directions, which ultimately resulted in a perpetually ‘underrated’ status, whether it is deserved or not. Bad Cameo, a collaborative album with James Blake, is another new direction in Yachty’s remarkably varied catalogue.
A James Blake and Yachty collab album may seem unforeseen, but Yachty’s initial work was most notable for its eccentricity. Yachty was quick, however, to turn his back on the absurd and quippy “Minnesota” and look to the machismo of real-deal emceeing, which garnered him mixed results — Yachty is a persistent character in mainstream hip-hop, but his uncentered oeuvre has kept him outside superstar limelight and critical acclaim.
While his 2022 sleeper-hit “Poland” was a return to Lil Boat-era eccentricity and the meme-driven limelight, his most notable left turn was last year’s psych-rock album, Let’s Start Here; a brave shift from trap beats, but, after the the zeitgeist shock had settled, a simple asterisk on his discography, rather than a bold artistic statement. This past month, Yachty couldn’t help but try it again, collaborating with faux-bedroom soul darling James Blake.
Bad Cameo sounds like promising unfinished leaks from the pantheon of unreleased Ye records one finds on the YouTube side-bar. While Cameo starts hopeful, with the pulsing abyss mood of “Save the Savior,” the banality of James Blake’s ambient textures and Yachty’s uninformed eponymous prayer undermine the potential of this ambitious pairing. Blake is producing on auto-pilot, seemingly piecing together cheap ambient pads, arp loops, and under-water drum-sounds from Splice (admittedly bolstering them with tasteful sound design), while Yachty drones on with generic rap braggadocio in a contradictory, though catchy, temperamental croon.
Bad Cameo is not a colossal collaborative failure like the buried Lil Wayne and Weezer pairing. The kinetic “Missing Man” and “Twice” shine despite their absence of theme. I’m not one to bash a Carti-type for their incoherence; in fact, I find Carti’s work significantly more emotionally charged and experimental than Cameo. However, Carti isn’t making an artsy, Alternative R&B record with the hipster-UK’s most beloved export. Blake and Yachty’s Bad Cameo is a knowingly slap-dashed record that serves as an eccentric novelty in their respective discographies rather than a bold departure from their norm.
In the contemporary Poptimist music landscape, we should cherish artists for taking left turns away from genericisms. As much as I hoped a Yachty and Blake collaboration would produce something profoundly inventive and artful, perhaps someone with more psychological intrigue and interpersonal charisma would be better suited for such a move. I guarantee a Jay-Z album produced by Burial would, bar none, create something more substantive than Bad Cameo.
