Yeat - “2 Alive” Album Review
As it stands, Noah Smith, also known as Yeat, released the No. 1 album in the world on the Apple Music charts with his newest production, “2 Alivë.”
Known as the king of underground hip-hop, the 21-year-old reached new heights with this exhilarating album worthy of being named one of his best. Even more impressive, this became his fifth project released in a one-year span.
There is no theme or narrative overlaying the tracks, rather a fashionable collection of singles relevant to Yeat’s style and his social media audience.
Every tune serves a similar purpose - putting together memorable digital melodies while allowing Yeat to roam free as he knows best. Rapping about drugs, money, women, cars and fashion is common in rap music today, but the California native created his own dialect to express these same ideas, and subsequently, a modern dictionary for the youth.
Yeat’s distinct voice and irked tone mix to perfection with the flowing cascade of disrespectful lyrics, carefully ensuring the world understands his bizarre lifestyle.
The majority of tracks provide Yeat’s mumbling flow with an open space, creating an atmosphere while letting the layers fade in and out of our earlobes. This however, although highly impressive on a first listen, reveals a lot about his appeal to a more niche audience.
Yeat is for the gym, Instagram captions, social media boasting, Tik Tok, parties and other casual situations.
After a certain period of time, you can feel Yeat’s inflection become repetitive and hard to admire on an hour-long album. To be quite frank, the more you listen to an individual song, the less impressive it gets.
At certain points, a sudden dullness may grow from the repetitive hi-hats and arcade melodies, which is a fighting argument against Yeat’s production and on-beat versatility. Nonetheless, sprinkled throughout the album are brand new features and themes that listeners were introduced to unknowingly, and that are worth a closer look.
Things get interesting in the third track, “Outsidë,” where Young Thug & Yeat assemble to create a melodic anthem of brotherhood. Thug’s sweet vocals fit wonderfully, providing an indescribable structure to the song that was clearly missing.
This becomes a trend however, as Gunna provides the same charm in “Rackz got më,” a song about dealing with betrayal. Yeat, however, is able to deliver one of the catchiest hooks of the album, and emphasize drug use and avarice as a way to deal with adversity.
In both “Jus Bëtter” and “Taliban,” you can feel an improved track progression, where Yeat seems to experiment with peaking vocals and grotesque audio mixing. This new deal makes the songs stand out amongst others, similarly to adding variety in the purpose and thought-provoking aspects of his music.
Prior to the song “Call më,” Yeat had never given the audience a reason to empathize, as he carefully unwrapped a trap ballad, sensible to his interpretation of love. A slower melodic beat, once again, provided a new perspective in his music, where many lay hopeful that he attempts a similar emotional formula in the future.
A few other tracks such as “Smooktobër” and “Gëek high” make a strong closing statement, highlighting his efficiency on a harder, fast-paced beat. The Ken Car$on feature, although oddly mixed, was also exciting and a refreshing addition, leaving fans of both, myself included, expecting later collaborations.
Speaking of collaborations, the chemistry between Yeat and SeptembersRich in “Luh M” begs to be another hit, in what is yet again, a catchy, harmonious hook with complementing verses revolving around their unconditional love for money.
All in all, it's a major success for both Yeat and his fans. Music is subjective and interpreted individually depending on appeal, and in the daily lives of our modern world, the appeal for hard-hitting, boastful hip-hop is undeniably large.
In this project and almost every musical piece he releases, Yeat wants to remind you, once again, that he is on top of the world.
Rating: 6/10
Reviewer’s Favorite Songs: “Poppin”, “Rackz got më”, “Rollin” and “Luh M”
Reviewer’s Least Favorite Songs: “Luh Gëek” and “Kant dië”
Juan Mendez is a second-year student majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jsm6062@psu.edu.
