2 Alivë

LA-based MC Yeat might only be getting his feet wet in the rap game, but he’s already long on confidence. “Everything I’m doing is just better than you,” he sings to doubters on 2 Alivë’s “Jus bëtter.” 2 Alivë is the MC’s first project of 2022, after having released three in 2021 alone (Up 2 Më, 4L, Alivë). Fans of viral selections like 4L’s “Sorry Bout That” will recognize Yeat’s penchant for slipping in and out of vintage Young Thug flows, but if the YSL general himself takes no issue with it (Thugger appears on the album’s “Outsidë”), how could we? As a young star on the rise, Yeat chooses mostly to rap about a life full of drugs, money, and mayhem, but what he says is less important than how he says it. The rapping (and singing) here is rarely hurried and mostly delivered over what sounds like 1990s video-game-inspired production. And still, full verses can be difficult to understand, a clear reminder that even as the flagship MC of burgeoning label Field Trip Recordings and maybe the most buzzed-about MC of the post-SoundCloud generation, Yeat is but a medium for the vibes.