Just over four months ago, Lil Yachty shared an interview clip on Instagram talking about James Blake. The key quotables from it were these: “I think James is working with a quite substantial amount of hip-hop artists, but this project is just… so left. For both of us”. “It’s just gonna be like ‘what the f***?! When they do this?!’”. After that fairly vague soundbite, the trailer-like post made things a little clearer. “CMYK PRESENTS ‘BAD CAMEO’ A FULL LENGTH ALBUM BY JAMES BLAKE & LIL YACHTY”. Fans were undoubtedly excited and intrigued, but no one was sure when we would receive it. Thankfully, on June 6, both artists shared the album cover, as well as the release date.
We are happy to say that Bad Cameo is here today, June 28, and it is quite tremendous. That may be a surprise to some, but perhaps why this album works is all thanks to Let’s Start Here.That LP by Yachty opened the versatility floodgates and most likely gave James Blake and the rapper belief that this would be possible. Honestly, though, it does more than just get by it passes with flying colors. Sure, there are some moments where it feels like one artist is in more control than the other. But the number of times that they mesh far outweighs the moments where they clash. In fact, that is so minimal that we would argue the album nearly flawless.
While that might be recency bias kicking in, hear us out. The instrumentals, which are handled by Lil Yachty, James Blake, BNYX, Dom Maker, and SADPONY, are all so unique from each other. Like the beats, the vocals are also extremely captivating and feel futuristic at times. Furthermore, the lyrical content is deep, self-reflective, and emotional, and they almost always complement the moods of the sonics. This is far from a traditional R&B/hip-hop album. Bad Cameo is something truly extraordinary and needs to be explored again and again.
Lil Yachty and James Blake are one of the most fascinating collaborations in recent memory. The rapper and electronic balladeer couldn’t be further apart, and yet, they’ve found a way to make their disparate sounds for an entire album. Bad Cameo, their debut release as a duo, is out June 28. They’ve been doing lots of promotion in the lead up to its release. That being said, the most surprising anecdote they’ve said thus far has to be their shared fascination with Young Thug.
Lil Yachty and Blake were asked about their wildest studio experiences during an appearance on the Safe Space Podcast. Incredibly, both artists picked sessions with Young Thug as their answer. “Probably Young Thug, during COVID,” Blake quipped. Lil Yachty instantly co-signed his collaborator. “I was just about to say the same thing,” he claimed. “Young Thug, for me, was definitely the craziest session ever.” What makes their shared answer so interesting is that Lil Boat and Blake recorded with Thugger during completely different times.
Lil Yachty elaborated on Young Thug’s unorthodox process. “It’s 60 people in a room, the mic’s in the room, he’s recording in the room,” he explained. “No one stops talking, it’s weed smoke, there’s nowhere to sit, the lights are low.” James Blake confirmed that he was brought into a similarly packed situation. The singer/producer did assert that Thug was very professional in terms of work ethic, however. He told the Safe Space host that the YSL boss was “very supportive” and focused when it came time to lay down vocals.
James Blake and Young Thug have only collaborated on one song, “Kisses Make Sure.” The former claimed that he worked with Thugger during COVID, however, so it remains to be seen whether they have more songs in the vault. Lil Yachty and Young Thug, meanwhile, have multiple collabs dating back to 2016. The two rappers are so close, in fact, that Yachty scrapped an entire album on Thug’s advice. “One time I played [Lil Boat 3] for Young Thug,” he told Pheno Bars in 2023. “He said it was dog sh*t, so I just started over.” It’s this brutal honesty that has led Lil Yachty to dub Thugger one of the “greatest” of his generation. Here’s hoping more collabs are around the corner.
Some collaborations often catch fans off guard, and Lil Yachty and James Blake’s upcoming joint album, Bad Cameo, can fall into that category. Yet, it hasn’t been uncommon for Blake to partner with Hip Hop artists throughout his prolific career. He has worked with artists like Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé, Vince Staples, Chance The Rapper, and Frank Ocean, and was featured on the Black Panther soundtrack. Yachty’s catalog of hits speaks for itself, and these two decided to band their skills together for what they hope is an unforgettable project that both say inspired their best songwriting.
“As soon as we started making songs, and I think partly it was to do with this conversation we had pretty early on where Yachty was like, ‘James, you’ve made enough,’” Blake told Zane Lowe on Apple Music 1. “‘You’ve worked on enough Rap records. Let’s make something completely different.’ And I was like, ‘Totally, what do you feel like working on?’ And I just started playing him….it’s not that I assumed we’d make a Rap vocal collab record. I just didn’t know what he wanted to do.”
“So when he said that, I was like, ‘Great, obviously the door’s open for any type of thing I’m going to play him,” Blake added. “So, I just started playing him ambient things. Things I’d been working on actually from a similar era to the Robots‘ era stuff. If you look around here, this is all just since that. I’ve made all that stuff on and I was playing him some stuff like that. Then, he had a couple of things that he brought in that kind of matched that mood.”
Both Blake and Yachty expounded on Bad Cameo, detailing why they were drawn to work with one another in the first place. Read through a few highlights below, including lessons Yachty learned from Blake and why Blake almost swore off collaborations altogether before this partnership arose. Additionally, make sure to stream Bad Cameo when it arrives this Friday, June 28.
James Blake On Why He Wanted To Work With Lil Yachty
The thing that I think it was for me—because I already respected you as an artist in the genre you started in. To me, the music you were making already was amazing. And I think lyrically you stood out energetically. You stood out, and I just felt like every time your voice came on something, it was like, oh, I just knew there was going to be a level of quality to it. I also got a sense early on that some of the kinds of genre associations and the kinds of ways that some people felt about that genre were reflecting on you unfairly. And I could see that there was someone unbelievably special who just happened to make this kind of music. And it’s also music that I love.
Lil Yachty On What He Learned From Working With James Blake
Lil Yachty: I think I have a better understanding of quality and I feel like he pushed me to—he didn’t push me physically. Like, told me, ‘Do better.’ But just being around and experiencing him work pushed me to try to have reason in my songwriting and to just live up to the quality of James’s catalog. I didn’t want to put a project out and then his fans be upset with me. Kind of slaughtering all of the—
James Blake: That could never happen.
Zane Lowe: No, but I do understand what you’re saying. Pushing yourself to connect to the music in a way where—
Yachty: Just to be as great as everything that he has done. No, seriously, I wanted to make sure he knew how serious I was. Because I, myself, have worked with so many artists who are just so unserious. They don’t understand true effort or just don’t apply themselves. It’s so easy to say, ‘Yeah, man, let’s make a project, man, let’s work. Let’s do an album. Let’s do a mixtape.’ But to genuinely apply yourself, show up, and devote time because it’s my time and his time that we spent to create this child. [I] just really wanted to show that I was there and this was as important to me as it was to him.
Lowe: It says less about the value it creates after the fact and more with actually just being completely present in the process.
Yachty: Well, we just never once had a conversation about what happens after. It was always just what we liked and what we felt was right. We never was like, ‘Oh man, we going to go number one, or…’ We never had that conversation. It’s just like we went with it.
Blake: We knew that wasn’t going to happen because I’m involved. But we definitely had conversations about the ideas of the—
Lowe: The British humility at play here.
Yachty: Well, I think he’s going to possibly help me get my Grammy.
James Blake Swore Off Any More Collabs Before Working With Yachty
Blake: I’d say before even before we even met, I decided not to do many more collaborations.
Lowe: What was the purpose behind it? What was the thinking?
Blake: Well, my thinking was in most sessions, I don’t enjoy it that much. I think, there’s a lot of great artists, but are they going to make you laugh? Are you going to actually have a good time? Are you actually going to form a friendship that is like, you actually want to see them come into the studio? I mean, there’s a certain point in your career where you’re like, ‘Well, I don’t have to do this.’ I’m not trying to cross-pollinate fan bases and get—there’s no A&R moves anymore. I’m just making music. Not that there really ever was, but now I’m like, ‘How can I preserve my space? How can I be only have fun?’ And we just, I mean, our sessions are 99 percent unserious. This is probably the most serious conversation we’ve ever had, I think.
Lil Yachty is joining the Despicable Me universe with his brand-new soundtrack cut, “Lil Mega Minion”. According to Stereogum, this will be the second song to land on the upcoming Despicable Me 4 (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack). However, there is no confirmation on if it appears at some point during the actual film, which will take over theaters on Wednesday, July 3. Hip-hop/rap adjacent artists have been associated with the “love it or hate it” movie series since it started back in 2010. Pharrell Williams is the name who has by far and away shown up the most, with “Happy” being the biggest song to come out from them.
There is a good chance that “Lil Mega Minion” does not reach those same astronomical heights. But this is another solid accomplishment in Lil Yachty’s career. Helping this song get put together is Cole Bennett and his team over at Lyrical Lemonade. They were in charge of directing and filming the accompanying music video, which you can check out below. It features the new types of minions that are going to be in the 4th motion picture, as well as a cameo from Apple Music’s Zane Lowe. Unlike Yachty, Lyrical Lemonade is not new to helping out the folks over at Illumination. They put their own twist on a movie trailer by including “Rich Minion” in the video, a song in which Yeat made for Minions: The Rise of Gru.
The jig is up, I’m back in town You my lil’ mega minion You follow me around I make you smile Ain’t never tryna see you frown I can open your mouth like a crown
After announcing their collaborative album, Bad Cameo, in February, Lil Yachty and James Blake have finally given fans a release date to look forward to. Bad Cameo is slated for release June 28th via Quality Control Music/Motown Records and Republic Records. Back when they announced the project, Yachty said of the work that “it’s so left — for both of us.”
In a new feature in Complex, the two artists shared their views on each other’s songs, which helped prompt their collaboration, and the similarities in their work styles. “Before we got this close, I thought all musicians were like me and music was all day every day,” said Yachty. Blake pointed out how this helped their process, saying, “I know a lot of people who just don’t really want to consume that much outside of what they make. And actually I’m a bit like that. I make music for myself. I say I don’t listen to music. Obviously I do. There’s loads of albums I love. And if I’m driving and we’re going on a road trip or something, I’ll play music in the car. But I really value peace.”
Lil Yachty/James Blake
Bad Cameo is due on 6/28 via Quality Control Music/Motown Records and Republic Records. You can find more information here.
British singer-songwriter and producer James Blake has been working with rappers for years now. After collaborating with the likes of RZA, Vince Staples, and Chance The Rapper earlier in his career he opened things up following his 2016 album The Colour In Anything. His next album was 2019’s Assume Form which features collaborations with Travis Scott and Andre 3000. In between he worked on songs with Kendrick Lamar, Anderson .Paak, Ab-Soul and more. But now he’s gearing up for his first ever full collaborative effort with a hip-hop artist.
Earlier this year Blake revealed that he and Lil Yachty were working on an entire collab album together and today we got more details on the project. The confirmed that it will be called BAD CAMEO and shared an album cover hilariously contrasting their different choice in beverages. They also revealed the projects release date and fans won’t have to wait more than a few weeks to hear it. BAD CAMEO will arrive later this month on June 28. Check out the album cover for the highly-anticipated forthcoming project below.
Earlier this year, James Blake introduced a new streaming platform called Vault. The platform gives die-hard fans access to the unreleased material from their favorite artists. The announcement followed a series of public comments he made about the state of the music industry and the restrictions preventing artists from making money off their art. He’s already uploaded tons of his own unreleased material exclusively to the platform for subscribers to hear in the few month since it first launched back in March.
What do you think of James Blake and Lil Yachty dropping their collab album BAD CAMEO next month? Are you looking forward to hearing what the two very different artists serve up while working together? Let us know in the comment section below.
James Blake and Lil Yachty are about as different as two artists can be on the surface. One broke through making glitchy, sad boy electronica, while the other burst onto the scene making happy and colorful pop-rap. The notion that they would collaborate on a single song, much less an entire album, would have been baffling a decade ago. Yet, that’s exactly what Blake and Yachty are gearing up for. These eclectic artists are going to be dropping the album Bad Cameo, and have been hyping it up in interviews.
Blake talked about the sound and overall aesthetic of the album during a recent Complex feature. The artist is going for a vulnerable feel, which tracks for anyone who’s heard a second of a James Blake song, but he noted how shockingly different it will be for Lil Yachty. “We got a really vulnerable side of Yachty in some of those sessions,” he explained. Blake told the outlet that he’d been a fan of Lil Boat for years, but he didn’t feel as though their styles were complimentary until the rapper dropped his latest album, Let’s Start Here. In Blake’s estimation, that was a pivotal turning point.
James Blake claimed he was completely blindsided by the album. “When I heard his last record, I was like, this is really a turn,” he recalled. “Not many artists are brave enough to do something that’s kind of opposite of the last thing they did.” The rest of the Complex piece took the form of a conversation with Blake and Yachty. Once more, however, the electronic artist pointed out Yachty’s propensity for happy music. Lil Yachty cited Paul McCartney and Wings’ “Let ‘Em In” as one of the first songs he remembers singing as a child, and Blake was quick to draw parallels to Yachty’s own music.
“This, to be honest, explains a lot just from your musical sensibilities,” Blake told the rapper. “[It’s] happy music. I noticed that that runs through your music.” He then explained the ways in which his and Yachty’s styles blended on Bad Cameo. “I mean, on this record you were talking about so many different things. There’s pain, there’s happiness, there’s everything in between. But that vibe is so sunny and it’s kind of what your disposition is in your music.” Sounds like a fascinating blend.
Drake puts out lots of music. The rapper’s biggest detractors have concede that he’s a hard worker who has dropped nearly every year for a decade. Given his tireless recording, and his versatility within genres, one might assume that Drake is listening to music nonstop. The rapper’s buddy, Lil Yachty set the record straight, however, during a recent Complex interview. Lil Yachty claimed that Drake takes a very different approach to recording than he does, in that Drake rarely listens to music when he isn’t making it.
This revelation came about during a conversation between Yachty and James Blake. The two artists are working on a collab album together, and discussing the ways in which they create. Lil Yachty is probably the most famous Drake fan in the world (sorry Akademiks), so it makes sense that he would bring up the 6 God in the discussion. “When I started hanging with him a lot, he rarely listens to music,” Yachty noted. “Except for like, when he’s recording.” The rapper uses himself as a counterpoint, claiming that he wakes up and plays music throughout the majority of his day. “Driving, music,” he asserted. “Showering, music. Eating, music.”
Drake, on the other hand, prefers conversation to music. “He’s more, like a, talking type of person,” Lil Yachty posited. “Music when it’s time to record. Sometimes he plays music in the car, but sometimes he’ll ride in silence.” The last point is especially interesting, given the proliferation of Drake’s music as “driving music.” It’s how the “Drake and drive” meme from the 2010s originated. Lil Yachty went on to say that the 6 God’s unique approach made him realize that each artist has a different process. “Before we got as close, I thought all musicians were like me,” he admitted. “And music was just like, everyday, everything.”
James Blake, who mostly listens in the clip, shares Drake’s musical methodology. He told Yachty that he doesn’t listen to music all day, and prefers to save his musical attention for the recording studio. Fittingly, James Blake and Drake have worked exceptionally well together over the years. Blake sang the outro on the beloved 2014 Drake loosie “0 to 100 / The Catch Up,” and Blake remixed Drizzy’s “Come Thru” back in 2013. The latter was released on the official OVO Soundcloud.
Lil Yachty went back to his old stomping grounds not too long ago to drop some old recordings over the course of his career. That familiar place is Soundcloud, which the Georgia creative is still active on even till this day. Lil Boat hopped on his IG story about 24 hours ago to announce that he loaded up tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem with a “new” batch of 14 tracks. Some of the tracks have the years in which they were made, and the ones that do were concocted in 2022, 2023, or 2021. One of them, “Part of the plan”, sees Lil Yachty work with someone who should be a frequent collaborator.
That would be 21 Savage and because of that hometown connection, you would think they would have a lengthy history. However, the opposite is quite true, as we could only find two official releases from them. “Drippin’” and “Neck Shine” are on a producer project from Dolan Beats called Most Known Unknown (Dolan Beats Classic). Those are 2018 cuts, but outside of those two, “Part of the plan” is the only other one with both their names attached.
Listen To “Part Of The Plan” By Lil Yachty & 21 Savage
Even with the lack of songs together, Yachty and 21 do share one major accomplishment together. Both have become some of the biggest stars from the 2016 XXL Freshman class. In a crop that featured the likes of Lil Uzi Vert, Kodak Black, Denzel Curry, and etc., these two have arguably trumped them in influence. Now, they are back to rekindle that connection on “Part of the plan”.
What are your thoughts on “Part of the plan” by Lil Yachty and 21 Savage? Is this the best song from the recent tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem drop, why or why not? Do you think him and 21 need to collab more often going forward? How long have you heard about this Soundcloud account? We would like to hear what you have to say, so be sure to leave your takes in the comments section. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the latest news surrounding Lil Yachty and 21 Savage. Finally, stay with us for everything else going on in the music world.
The Soundcloud era of hip-hop was a rich time for listeners. Some of the biggest and brightest stars were taking part in it during its most explosive era in the last 2010s. It allowed for some names on the cusp of stardom to really breakthrough and one of them was Lil Yachty. All of the extra exposure he gave himself by doing this has allowed him to become a face of the genre overall. Well, Lil Yachty is paying homage to those days on the platform by releasing a fresh set of tracks to his “tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem” account.
Yes, this is not some fan account that is looking ruin hype around impending drops from artists. This is actually run Lil Boat himself, so all of these tracks are legit as can be. The Georgia multi-hyphenate announced that he uploaded these old recordings on his Instagram story last night. “Dropped 12 old leaks on the concrete leak system last night ”.
Yachty’s math is off by two though, as there are actually 14. For those who are shocked by this development, the 26-year-old superstar has had tHE CONCRETE LeaK sYstem up and running for about three years now. In fact, with this newest batch, the number of unreleased songs is now up to 100. If you want quick access to them, we provided the direct link above. Go feast Lil Yachty fans!
What are your thoughts on these leaked Lil Yachty Soundcloud tracks? Are any of these songs better than his newest stuff, why or why not? Did you know about this account well before these most recent records? What song do you think is the best from this crop of 14? We would like to hear what you have to say, so be sure to leave your takes in the comments section. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the latest news surrounding Lil Yachty. Finally, stay with us for everything else going on in the music world.
JUNE 28TH
”.