2093 is a futuristic gold mine.
American rapper Yeat released his highly anticipated fourth studio album 2093 last week.
This album is one that I have been anticipating for a long time. I was not that fond of his previous LP AfterLyfe. I left the album only liking about 4 songs (Myself, Split, Nun id change, & Type money), and overall felt that the album lacked cohesion.
I can respect Yeat’s attempt at an experimental sound, considering he’s making more music since getting sober. Experimental media that is challenging is one of my favorite forms of media. I respect it because it goes against the grain. Pop culture is fun, but that kind of music often becomes overwhelming in its surplus.
Yeat is not the first artist to go experimental. Carti’s Whole Lotta Red and Lil Yachty’s Lets Start Here. are prime examples of rappers going a more experimental route and doing it successfully. However, Yeat’s AfterLyfe does not sit amongst these projects within that category.
That being said, 2093 is some of Yeat’s best work.
Yeat has been teasing this album since his collaboration with Drake in October 2023. An account on Instagram by the name of @lyfestylecorporation first popped up around that time, with its first post being a Nocta ad with Yeat’s verse on IDGAF on Drake’s last album For All The Dogs. Around the same time, on his main account, Yeat posted various pictures of himself with a caption that read “…..#2093…??????#ceo…..” This is where the roll-out began.
The roll-out of this album was really cool. Since these posts, Yeat continued to tease the project. In November, Yeat was on the cover of Joerg Koch’s 032c magazine, where he discussed the album’s stark difference from AfterLyfe. “Between the last record and this upcoming one, it feels like a ten-album difference in time. People have no idea what it’s going to sound like. It’s, like, 2093, dystopian society…”
The magazine is my favorite part of the roll-out. It was published apart of 032c’s winter issue ‘EDGLRD,’ comprised of dossiers photographing rapper Travis Scott, RM of BTS, Alton Mason, and more notable figures in music & fashion.
In his feature, Yeat talks about aliens and rides dirt bikes in a forest and its some of the coolest stuff ever.
In early January, promotional projections were seen in various parts in the world, in cities and landmarks, and a few days later, Yeat posted on Instagram posing with one of the projections, with the caption implying a February release date. Later that month, on January 31st, Yeat posted more photos which confirmed a February release date and hinted at potential collaborations with Drake and Childish Gambino.
This album is genre-less. Psychedelic? Electronic? Transcendentalist? None of these encapsulate this work.
One of my favorite aspects about this album is how glitchy and cinematic the production is. It’s something that I was especially looking forward to after hearing the snippets.
The first 5 track run will be studied in the future. The brooding sounds on Psycho CEO to the multiple beat switches on Power Trip to the club-like atmosphere on Breathe to the guttural chaos on More to the conflict and melancholia on Bought the Earth is an insane start to an album. The flow he has on these songs are unmatched. The songs reel in the post-apocalyptic aesthetic of this LP more and more.
One of my most favorite on this part of the album are Power Trip and More. Power Trip is a top 3 track on the album. Yeat reflects on his trials & tribulations with the ones he trusted. The downbeat production and how it slowly switches through out the track to match the heavy lyrical content is so intense. More follows after Breathe. Breathe is a pretty well-executed club song, and its among Yeat’s best work in my opinion. More is even more glum and solemn than Power Trip, which I thought would be hard to do during my first listen. Yeat flaunts his success and riches while convincing himself that he did the right thing as CEO. This sentiment of reflection is echoed throughout the entire album, but this is my favorite to feature this.
Bought the Earth is my favorite song by far. Here, Yeat reflects on his control and riches. ‘Am I wrong for being selfish?/Am I wrong for putting me first?’ This lyric holds so much weight on this track. It’s direct and one of Yeat’s most relatable bars. On this song, Yeat drags you into his mind. It’s such an immersive and personal experience. It moved me. Another example of this is on If We Being Real. ‘I been overseas, you been on your knees’.
Yeat has grown like no other these past few years. He saw initial success in 2021 as part of ‘The Underground,” which refers to the scene of the rap Underground during this time in the context of Tiktok. A lot of rappers came from this period. Yeat, tana, SoFaygo, and many more artists went viral during this time. But Yeat stands out amongst this class. His rise during this time was unlike any other. Up 2 Me, Yeat’s debut studio album and my favorite of his saw great virality and peaked at Number 58 on the Hot Billboard 200.
A song that I keep coming back to is ILUV. Yeat’s flow on that one is different. Tons of replay value.
Lil Wayne, Future, and Drake feature on this album. They caught a flow on Yeat’s beats that only they would be able to catch. Lil Wayne’s verse was the best to me.
Another pretty cool bar of Yeat’s on this album is on Run They Mouth. ‘I was ‘Alive’ for ‘4l’, but it’s ‘Up 2 Me’ for ‘After’ now’. This was such a treat on my first listen. It was really cool to see Yeat reference his previous studio albums.
This project features Yeat’s most personal and complex rhymes. Usually, Yeat utilizes a decent amount of auto-tune, but songs like Power trip and Mr. Inbetweenit feature his rawest vocals.
Perhaps the most impactful moment of this album is the ending. ‘1093’ is a farewell- it’s more than an outro. The song has more of a ‘late-night’ vibe, but it’s meditative and grim. On this track, Yeat accepts the betrayal he’s been grappling with the entire time. ‘So I’ma take it to the end//But I can’t be ya friend//So I’ma show you the other way//Thats the way of dead men’. It comes down to vengeance in the end. This debate over how to feel about what was done to him is the resounding theme of the project. This album felt introspective at a lot of parts but this song stuck with me the most. The song is short but deep and it’s a great conclusion to the record. When I heard it the first time, I repeated it about 4 times. I have so much love for this song. It’s composed so well and ends the album gracefully. To me, the song and the album signified acceptance and finally letting go. Very few songs have made me feel what 1093 made me feel.
This is an album that gets better with every listen.
A lowlight for this album was at points it felt directionless. For example, a song will have a 4 minute runtime, and spend most of it building to something, just to switch in the last minute and a half and it left me feeling ditched. I would really get into one sound, just for it to switch or progress to another point right at the second. Maybe that’s the point, but it just doesn’t always achieve the intended effect.
Riot & Set it Off was my least favorite song. I tried to give it a chance, but the production is off-putting. The visuals Yeat released were really cool, but the track on its own doesn’t stand up.
Yeat is in a lane of his own. Sure, the influence of his contemporaries, some of which featured on this album, can be heard throughout. But Yeat’s different. The way that his harmonies become one with the beat is what makes him stand out. The effects and the layering elevate a lot of these songs to the next level.
I really enjoyed this album. I’ve listened to it all throughout at least 4 times. The longer runtime feels like nothing when I press play. The songs get better and better, Yeat’s flow gets better and better. 2093 is an out of body experience. The production, the atmosphere, the composition, the quality – it’s all top tier. It’s always crazy to me how good music can make other songs sound simply boring.
This is Yeat’s most cohesive project. It’s not for everyone, I admit, but will be one of those projects that takes time for people to appreciate. There’s some really cool sounds here.
This album rates a highly recommended 8.5 out of 10.