This week, one of Music Daily’s Trending Tracks is Yeat’s “If We Being Rëal.” “If We Being Rëal” is the 21st track on Yeat’s 22-song album, 2093.
While the boast of being “self-made” is thrown around a ton in hip-hop, there aren’t many who have as strong of a claim to that title as LA’s Yeat. Though a feature on Drake’s For All The Dogs may have boosted his profile, it arrived well past when he established himself as a true force. His 2023 album, Afterlyfe, cleaned up a sizeable 50,000 units in its first week. As he continues on a trajectory towards the top, Yeat delivered 2093, his fourth studio album.
Yeat Employs Next Millennium Production on 2093
It stands out early and often as you hit play on the project—the true star of the LP is the production. While Yeat has become solitary in terms of his influence on rage rap, he hasn’t held onto that position with an air of complacency. In contrast, the beats have grown with him over the course of his last few projects, and this is no exception. Trading in the synth-heavy, breakbeat style of his last few projects, much of the instrumentation here is downright cinematic. The rain-soaked, cyberpunk album art ends up very illustrative of the overall aesthetic he reaches for, with Blade Runner-esque SFX and heavy synths providing a constant throughline.
“Psycho CEO,” the first track, is an obvious point to begin discussing this more granularly. Taken on its own, the instrumental points less towards boasts about courtside seats and diamonds jumping (which he does) and more towards villainous walk-up music. Despite that contrast, Yeat’s autotune crooning allows those brags and flexes to carry the demanded level of aloofness and menace.
The LA Rapper’s CEO Persona
Jumping ahead, the similarly titled “Team ceo” speaks to the lyrical lane that the LA rapper has found himself in. The total left-field quality of his production has seemingly allotted him space to go equally wild with his lyrics, totally separated from base camp in a way that’s equally evocative and absurd. “I got new s***, I invent a word / I been livin’ life that you never heard of / I got billion dollar money live inside a turtle,” he raps towards the second verse, bolstering his earlier claim of being the “futuristic Al Capone.”
In the hook, he delivers the couplet, “Do you live a lot? Do you live a lie? / I know what happens when you die.” Some fans have speculated this points towards an early-career, near-death experience. However, it’s equally possible that this is just Yeat spitting from this newfound totally detached point of view, taking the “mafia boss” persona so rampant in hip-hop to its fullest cyberpunk extent.
Colorful Features Alongside Yeat on 2093
As previously mentioned, since 2 Alive in 2022 where Lil Uzi Vert, Young Thug, Gunna and Ken Carson all contributed, Yeat’s projects either eschew features altogether or use them on at most a couple of songs. Keeping the circle tight, only two rappers appeared on the original version of 2093. First is Lil Wayne on “Lyfestylë.” He keeps up the momentum of an incredibly strong year so far, delivering a staccato 16 rife with metaphors and wordplay. Given how Weezy famously doesn’t keep up with his genre’s trends, it’s even more impressive that he slides so perfectly over production that’s so far out of his wheelhouse.
Future, on the other hand, appearing on “Stand On It,” isn’t taking anyone by surprise by showing he’s totally at home in this rage rap world. After an introductory verse where Yeat flaunts the star-studded circle he’s surrounded himself with, Pluto delivers a thesis on drug-filled excess: “They say it’s my fault if you fall out on the codeine / I’m just a rich-a** junkie, I might OD.”
In an interesting release quirk, Yeat dropped a “Phase 2” addition to 2093 just two days after it initially hit DSPs. “Never quit” joined the tracklist, as well as the payoff on a pseudo-verse-for-a-verse trade between him and Drake. “As We Speak” reunites the once “IDGAF” collaborators and uses a lot of the same structure as that FATD cut. It begins in the same manner, with an operatic, soulful sample before jumping straight into the synthetic home base, utilizing booming horn sections to add grandeur in the margins. In that same vein, Drake borrows Yeat’s trademark flow for his performance, which, though it’s about par for the course for him, has already shown to be a recipe for chart-topping success.
Yeat Delivers Another Lengthy, Cinematic Full-Length
As a whole, Yeat on 2093 really cuts both ways. One of the biggest strengths of the project is its sonic cohesiveness, totally unwavering to its futuristic, sci-fi sound. At the same time, 22 songs spanning over 80 minutes in length is a tall task, a duration that far more rangey projects often fail to hold attention for. As a result, the lines between tracks here get blurred, and it’s sometimes hard to distinguish one song from another. Despite that, you’re likely to find a couple that stick if you’re a new listener, and if you’ve been checking in with Yeat for a while, the growth and progression on 2093 will stand all out the more.
You can find 2093 and all of Yeat’s catalog wherever you stream your music.
