Lil Yachty - Lil Boat 3

 A few months before the release of Lil Boat 3, Lil Yachty made the decision to stop dyeing his hair the vibrant red that once helped him to stand out in an emergent class of MCs that included 21 Savage, Kodak Black, and Lil Uzi Vert. Some four years after that rookie campaign, now on the third edition of his namesake franchise, Lil Boat is established enough as a voice and personality that he no longer needs the “I know that guy” it factor those bright red braids once gave him. (And the dye was destroying his hair.) But outside of his mop’s color-and the zeros in his bank account, presumably-very little has changed for the 22-year-old MC as he delivers the follow-up to 2018’s Nuthin’ 2 Prove.

The Yachty of Lil Boat 3 is very much the sweet, spacey, and lyrically ambitious MC fans fell for over the course of the five full-length projects he’s released. This latest edition, whose production comes courtesy of some of Southern rap’s most consistently in-demand producers (Earl on the Beat, jetsonmade, and Pi’erre Bourne, among others), is built on hefty 808 gong, the gaps in between making up a perfect backdrop for Yachty’s Auto-Tuned toasting. Topically, Lil Boat 3 is mostly about the freewheeling lifestyle Yachty enjoys, a perk of which would seem to be the endless amount of time the MC can spend turning up with his loved ones. This is a privilege that manifests itself on the record by way of several blockbuster collaborations, including “Oprah’s Bank Account” (Drake and DaBaby), “T.D” (Tyler, The Creator, A$AP Rocky, and Tierra Whack), and “Till The Morning,” which features Young Thug and Lil Durk.