The Atlanta rapper touched down in London as the first stop on European his Field Trip Tour alongside The Concrete Boys.
With his weird and feel-good sound labelled as ‘Bubblegum Trap’ in his early days, Lil Yachty been marked as a figurehead that helped accelerate the mumble rap movement around 2016. Scoring a few platinum singles here and a Grammy nomination there, Lil Yachty played to a more whimsical rap style with a nontraditional MC approach, brought forth with his irrelevant or anti-rap sense of humour as he evolved.
In 2023 however, Lil Yachty released Let’s Start Here, a psychedelically opposing body of work that strayed a little farther from his previous releases. His live performance at OVO Arena in Wembley was a sensory amalgamation, fusing classics with his newer, trippier catalogue.
Including Concrete Boys for the first half of the performance gave a more community feel, since the recent viral verse by Karrahbooo off her On The Radar freestyle blew up on social media, the group bounced off each other with ease, tapping into popular jersey club sounds to get the crowd moving. It’s hard to bring the energy on a Monday night but the setlist did Yachty justice by allowing his fans to tire themselves out through the mosh pits by showcasing some of his classic and more popular tracks such as ‘Coffin’ and ‘Get Dripped’.
As the show moved into the second half of the performance minus Concrete Boys, the visuals grew even more colourful, mirroring his Kevin Parker-esque inspiration. Lil Yachty has never been much of a vocalist but graced us with pure emotion, uplifted with his vocalist and all-female band. Tracks such as “the BLACK seminole.’. “Thanks for sticking with me when people were talking shit.” he says, earnestly before winding down with a piano focused outro to a monumental electric guitar solo grand finale. His performance was none other than a showcase of his musical maturity as well as a dazzling evolution of himself that we can only appreciate for years to come.
4/5
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