Yeat

In retrospect, the title of Yeat's second EP, Different Creature, is as much a stylistic classification as it is a name. Blending dystopian soundscapes with vocals that oscillate between Auto-Tuned chirps and spurts of guttural growls, Yeat's catalog has never felt terrestrial. Born Noah Olivier Smith in 2000, the California native began recording his first songs as Lil Yeat in 2015, and by 2018, he'd released his debut project, Deep Blue Strips. The jittery melodies and ambient synths evoked artists like Young Thug, but over time, on albums like 2 Alivë, he experimented with a deeper register while adopting twitchier flows and apocalyptic interpretations of the pixelated soundscapes he typically commandeered. In AftërLyfe (2023) and 2093 (2024), he waded even deeper into the surreal, moving among shapeshifting house, pop punk, and trap, rendering them with the distinctive flare of the otherworldly.