Yeat’s rise to fame + latest album

On February 18, rapper Yeat dropped his latest album 2 Alivë. Yeat has recently become famous due to his unique vocal style, and a few of his songs becoming famous on TikTok, and he has spread and slowly is becoming mainstream from there. He was given Drake’s approval, and signed with interscope records in 2020. Other well-known artists currently on the label include Billie Eilish,  Dr. Dre, and Playboi Carti. Interscope also has control over other labels, such as TDE and Dreamville, headlined by Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole, respectively.

Noah Smith, A.K.A. Yeat, began releasing music as early as 2015, but his music wouldn’t make it big for a while longer. He started making more music in 2018-20, and he became a figure in the underground rap scene, but he wasn’t anywhere close to becoming a mainstream artist. In 2020, Yeat released Up 2 Më, and although it didn’t gain much traction at the time, it would soon skyrocket his status in the rap industry. One of his songs, Gët Busy, became popular on Tiktok, and he was essentially an overnight hit. In the time of about a week when his song was trending the highest, he went from just another underground rapper to the newest young star. With his new status, he brought in all sorts of talent for his newest album, featuring Young Thug, Gunna, Ken Car$on, Yung Kayo, and Septembersrich on 2 Alive.

The biggest criticism faced by Yeat is because of the style of his singing, his songs tend to have a similar sound to them. It’s a fair argument, as he often works with a few of the same producers, and his voice on their tracks makes for a slightly repetitive sound from song to song. He can also lean a little to heavily toward gimmick that most people will probably get tired of soon. He always puts an umlaut on his E’s in song titles, and he has some words he leans towards using in his songs, such as “tonka”, “twizzy” and “Luh geek”. I think a similar example would be 2016’s Lil Pump takeover, he had a few hit songs like D-Rose and Gucci Gang, and he had a few similar quirks, often using words like “esketit” and Gucci gang. Pump also had the trap style with a lot of similar songs and a distinctive voice, where he almost yelled on his music, contrast to Yeat, who almost seems to drag out and slur his vocals.

Lafayette high school junior and trap music fan Logan Oliver is a huge fan of Yeat, s

aying “I’ve loved him since I heard his song Money so Big”. That song is his highest played on Spotify, with 44 million plays. He went on to say that he found Yeat through tiktok, and started listening a few months ago. “His newest album was amazing, and I think it’ll make him fully mainstream.” Logan is one of many people who started became a listener recently, which makes it seem like the new hype he’s getting will launch his career to new heights. However, there is the question of how long people will be able to enjoy his voice, and if 2 Alive will hold up for even a few months. Logan believes he will, stating “I think Yeat will stay mainstream for at least a while longer. It’s not just one example of a new rapper with a new style trending for a little while, his music is a new style that other people will try to replicate.” It’ll be interesting to see if people are still listening to new Yeat music like 2 Alive in a year.

2 Alive as an album isn’t terrible, but it probably isn’t solid enough to keep Yeat at the caliber of fame he has currently. There are some good songs on it, such as Outside, Rackz got me, Jump, and Geek High, but I don’t think it has anything too special on it. A few good trap songs aren’t a bad thing, especially because his style is very different than most artists currently in the trap scene, but I think the songs here are just good enough that people will enjoy them for another few months, then let Yeat fade back into underground obscurity.