Yung Lean: Starz | 4ZZZ Brisbane 102.1FM

- “I’m only twenty-three but there’s like ten of me” remarks Swedish Sadboy Yung Lean on his latest project, Starz. In 2012, the then sixteen-year-old rapper was perceived by most as a novelty with his blend of vaporwave aesthetics, droning Swedish accent and deliberately poor English. His wave caught on however, as, eight years later, many consider Lean to be a pioneer of the cloud-rap subgenre despite his young age. His maturity is reflected on Starz as Lean and his Sadboy crew continue to drive away from memes to stronger, more experimental soundscapes.

View it as a positive or negative, Lean’s recent material continues to be plagued by the drug-fuelled mistakes of early stardom. Much like on 2017’s Red Bottom Sky, the rapper takes his addiction and uses it to fuel the same depressed attitude as his earlier work. Yayo reflects Lean’s peak days in Miami where being on top swiftly led to a crushing bottom. Even in apparent sobriety, Lean sounds completely disoriented with his autotuned and heavily accented, spacey vocals. Producer whitearmor provides a hazy, atmospheric beat to match, causing the head to drift from side to side. Drug fuelled trauma is continued in Acid at 7/11, in which Lean becomes still more incomprehensible, over a synth-focused beat, as he details how stardom cost him his soul and mental health.

For all his lamentations, Lean has found a strong identity in his unique embrace of trap on tracks such as Violence, Iceheart and especially Pikachu. In these tracks, Lean abandons his worries to deliver short, hard-hitting numbers, focused on superficial braggadocio about diamonds and women. Violence sees whitearmor become crunchy and erratic as Lean attempts to get wealthy by any means, as quickly as possible. The comparison of diamonds to the famous Pokémon on Pikachu has been done before, i.e. Young Thug’s great Picacho, but Lean is so effortless with his short and sharp chorus that comparisons don’t matter. Like the topic, whitearmor’s repetitive glitchy synth patterns are nothing new but he does it in a way that keeps the listener fully entranced.

Tracks like Boylife in EU and Dance in the Dark prove Lean to be quite the crooner. Boylife in EU is unlike most of Lean’s material as he details his need to be held and loved in a strong relationship. The soft, angelic verses burst into an expressive chorus as if the previously subtle and nervous vocals cannot be contained. Dance in the Dark warmly floats around the room and Lean has an almost transcendental effect as he plays with pitched up background vocals. Fellow Sadboy Yung Sherman and whitearmor provide one of the strongest production moments in a glistening guitar outro.

Some of the weaker love songs towards the middle of the record, such as Dogboy, see Lean struggle both vocally and in his song writing, with playful, childlike melodies that end up annoying me. Lean’s vocal abilities remain weaker but are more empathetic on closing track Put Me in a Spell which sweeps through a crescendo of synths and vocal effects, closing emotively.

Starz is easily the strongest and most cohesive Yung Lean has been to date. Despite his imperfect English and singing he shines. Apparent weaknesses become strengths, delivering a sound raw and unique. A future, more concise project could see Lean perfect his craft, but if it were perfect would it still be Yung Lean? Don't even ask the question: like a diamond, glinting on the floor of a shabby drug-flop, this is great music, worth looking out for.

- James Chadwick.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VamfnrmmAow" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe>