Love him or hate him, 2016 was a an enormous year for Miles Parks McCollum, or as most of his fans (and haters) know him, Lil Yatchy. The Mableton, Georgia born, Atlanta raised MC exploded onto the scene in early 2016 with his mixtape effort "Lil Boat", driven by it's 2 quirky unique singles "One Night" and "Minnesota" garnered enormous amounts of viral popularity, on top of his own successes his contribution to D.R.A.M's 2016 summer hit "Broccoli" only gave more speed and elbow room to his hype train . Lil Yatchy seemed to turn head after head and capture ear after ear with his goofy, playful, optimistic auto tune drenched take on Atlanta's already unique variation of Hip Hop, One night had me hooked from the very first of the song. His nasally, mono tune crooning grew on me instantly (as embarrassed as I was to admit it) and there wasn't really a way he could do wrong in my eyes. Lil Yatchy was buzzing and with his growing fan base came and equal amount of Hip-Hop purists with criticisms of Yatchy's clear lack of lyrical prowess and delivery, "mumble rapper" was the guise they assigned him and taunted him with, and while it seemed as if the poking and prodding had started to get to Yatchy, he was eventually able to cement his role as a legit new comer, or so I thought.
After another low stakes, "throw away project (summer songs 2) it seemed like everybody was ready for a Lil Yatchy full length studio effort, from his most die hard fans to his loyal haters, few could argue they weren't anticipating it.
And thus comes "Teenage Emotions", the first thing that immediately caught my attention about this project (aside from the intriguing bit of symbolism that was the cover of the album) was the enormous 21 song track list. Now obviously I attempt every listen of music with a mostly unbiased premise, however I have a bit of skepticism for giant projects like these that tend to drag on and over stay their welcome, take Drake's "VIEWS" as an example, or even Hip Hop Legend Biggie Smalls "Ready to die" , I'm just a bit of a skeptic when the track list doesnt stop at around 14 or 15.
My skepticism proves me right again.
And while being to bloated is FAR from this album's only short coming, it certainly doesn't help, tracks like "Lady in Yellow", 0Moments in Time" , "Otha Sh**" and "No More" just feel like enormous wastes of time sonically, everyone of those songs either has a song on the album with a similar topic, that does the job much better, or just isn't really saying anything different or in a unique way, a size able portion of this album feels like wasted space and it really resonates as kind of a rookie mistake by Yatchy and his camp.
The albums problems continue with the lack of real purpose for this "dual personality" narrative Yatchy immediately high lights on the very first track of this album "Like a star". Yatchy seemingly sets us up for this duel perspective journey, when quite the opposite is true. It feels as if Yatchy attempted to add some kind of uneeded depth to this LP and just flat out fails to really deliver on the initial setup, Boat seems to be the "edgier" more serious of his 2 "personas" however the first mention of his alter ego is really an off beat mediocre brag fest.
Yatchy seems to deviate further from his working formula with cuts off the project like "Peak-a-Boo" , and "Dirty Mouth", The normally blissful, high-spirited, quirkiness of Yatchy's music is completely scrapped in an attempt to adorn the edgier more serious Atlanta rap sound like his label mates Migos (who even feature on Peak-a-boo making the cut even more of an obvious reach), OG Maco and Rich The Kid. Yatchy's at his best when playing into his fun-loving carefree style strengths and his attempt to come off is this "Super serious mean guy" is laughable to put it nicely.
A lot if the flaws on the front od the album seem very fundamental, it's the second half of these album that seriously produces some head scratching "what was he thinking moments". I'll head this point off with a track that I was seriously cauht so far off guard by, I double checked to see if I was still listening to the same album. A few tracks into the second half of "Teenage Emotions" you will stumble upon what is probably the most out of place piece of music in Hip Hop history, the track "Bring it Back" sounds like something off the soundtrack to an 80's teenage Rom Com, not the debut album of an Atlanta rapper in 2017. Among the other out of place moments on the album "Better" is another "Why is this here?" moment for me. The sun kissed steel guitar and reggae vibe appear without any kind of warning and despite a solid feature solid from the up and coming Stefflon Don, the track fails to find a real home in the so ic space of this album.
Despite this albums glaring weaknesses and short comings, there are a few tiny victories that Yatchy can walk away from this earache with. The track "Harley", though not nearly dressed with same star power, draws parallels to the playful l, goofy "One Night", playing into Lil Yatchys strengths and capturing the feeling that gave Boat his place in the game today. Another bright spot can be found on the next track over. The feel good, prideful anthem "All around me" get's solid contributions from Cali rapper YG and Oakland talent Kamaiyah. The surprisingly upbeat Lex Luger piece was really done some solid justice by all 3 artists.
And of course Lil Yatchy is going to score some cheap points with the endearing ode to his mother as the final track of the project.
All in all Lil Yatchy's freshman effort "Teenage Emotions" was just short of a complete disaster, Yatchy seemed to have some serious identity issues and insecurities on this album. Yatchy's flaws start with his apparent lack of self awareness as an artist and his willfulness to play into formulas that don't suit him best despite the formulas popularity. Yatchy has alot of maturing to do as an artist, his creative process seems to lack originality and authenticity, and we are all waiting on the Yatchy albums that comes from an honest place of creativity.
