I met Yeat less than 10 minutes ago, and he’s already going viral.
The world has just learned that Queen Elizabeth II is dead, and within minutes of her passing, Twitter is on fire with memes about how she’ll never get to hear Yeat’s unreleased music. (Truly a fate worse than death.) Soon, his name is trending alongside hers.
Meanwhile, Yeat is trying on a Louis Vuitton jacket in a drafty Los Angeles warehouse, completеly unfazed by what’s happening online. Hе’s getting used to moments like this. Every few days, he finds himself at the center of a new viral storm, like the time a Swedish pole vaulter broke a world record while his song “Money So Big” inexplicably played in the background.
These things usually happen by accident, and Yeat doesn’t find out until later. Unlike most viral artists, defined by their mastery of the internet and its culture, he doesn’t spend much time on social media. In fact, he rarely engages with society at all. He’s suspicious of new friends, he hates parties, and most days, he doesn’t even leave the house. Instead, he ducks away in his home studio, recording deliriously chaotic rap songs all day.
So far, it’s worked out for him. The 22-year-old rap phenom, born Noah Oliver Smith, has made millions by constantly releasing new music. He’s racked up over a billion streams, debuted two consecutive projects in the Billboard top 10, and received co-signs from stars like Drake and Lil Uzi Vert. By most metrics, he’s rap’s rookie of the year, and the numbers only tell half the story.
Yeat is an ad-lib-spewing mad scientist at the bleeding edge of an experimental new era for rap. Throwing song structure norms and basic laws of the English language out the window, he’s making explosive, hallucinatory rap music for a restless generation that’s running for the mosh pits. (If you don’t understand all the words, it’s because he made them up.) As Lil Uzi Vert put it, “Yeat is a walking X pill. He sounds like what's going on outside right now.”
He rode a viral wave to conquer rap’s wild new underground, and now faces a new challenge: proving he has staying power in the mainstream. So far, he’s laid low, rarely speaking (or even showing his face) in public. Most details about his life have been kept under wraps, and if he had it his way, everyone would just assume he’s from outer space. After all, he typës likë hë crash-landëd herë from anothër planët. No one knows shit about the man behind the music, and he’s been happy to keep it that way. Until now. The enigmatic artist has finally agreed to let a journalist into his world for an in-depth profile.
Yeat shows up to his first-ever magazine cover shoot well before 2 p.m. (he’s a punctual guy), wearing a black leather trench coat and boots, even though it’s a 100-degree September day in L.A. With his girlfriend Symone by his side, he rifles through a rack of designer clothes, before something catches his eye. It’s a black balaclava, custom-made by the brand Who Decides War. Yeat pulls it over his head and likes what he sees, nodding in approval. That is, until noticing a row of sparkly flowers stitched on top.
“I don’t like the sparkles with the flowers,” he mutters. “It’s kind of a weird vibe.” At his request, the flowers are removed. “That’s fye,” he nods, puffing on a strawberry mango vape.
An hour later, Yeat tracks me down in a hallway near his dressing room. Apparently he’s had a change of heart. He doesn’t want to do a sit-down interview anymore. His new plan? iMessage.
“I could just text you,” he says, trying to get out of a plan we had agreed to months ago. “You could just ask me a bunch of questions. I’ll answer all of them.”
Sensing this interview will never happen if we don’t do it right now, I pull my phone out of my pocket, start a new voice memo, and begin asking questions on the spot. Somehow, it works. It’s unclear if he’s too stunned to fight back, or too polite to walk away in the middle of a conversation, but he plays along.
The world has just learned that Queen Elizabeth II is dead, and within minutes of her passing, Twitter is on fire with memes about how she’ll never get to hear Yeat’s unreleased music. (Truly a fate worse than death.) Soon, his name is trending alongside hers.
Meanwhile, Yeat is trying on a Louis Vuitton jacket in a drafty Los Angeles warehouse, completеly unfazed by what’s happening online. Hе’s getting used to moments like this. Every few days, he finds himself at the center of a new viral storm, like the time a Swedish pole vaulter broke a world record while his song “Money So Big” inexplicably played in the background.
These things usually happen by accident, and Yeat doesn’t find out until later. Unlike most viral artists, defined by their mastery of the internet and its culture, he doesn’t spend much time on social media. In fact, he rarely engages with society at all. He’s suspicious of new friends, he hates parties, and most days, he doesn’t even leave the house. Instead, he ducks away in his home studio, recording deliriously chaotic rap songs all day.
So far, it’s worked out for him. The 22-year-old rap phenom, born Noah Oliver Smith, has made millions by constantly releasing new music. He’s racked up over a billion streams, debuted two consecutive projects in the Billboard top 10, and received co-signs from stars like Drake and Lil Uzi Vert. By most metrics, he’s rap’s rookie of the year, and the numbers only tell half the story.
Yeat is an ad-lib-spewing mad scientist at the bleeding edge of an experimental new era for rap. Throwing song structure norms and basic laws of the English language out the window, he’s making explosive, hallucinatory rap music for a restless generation that’s running for the mosh pits. (If you don’t understand all the words, it’s because he made them up.) As Lil Uzi Vert put it, “Yeat is a walking X pill. He sounds like what's going on outside right now.”
He rode a viral wave to conquer rap’s wild new underground, and now faces a new challenge: proving he has staying power in the mainstream. So far, he’s laid low, rarely speaking (or even showing his face) in public. Most details about his life have been kept under wraps, and if he had it his way, everyone would just assume he’s from outer space. After all, he typës likë hë crash-landëd herë from anothër planët. No one knows shit about the man behind the music, and he’s been happy to keep it that way. Until now. The enigmatic artist has finally agreed to let a journalist into his world for an in-depth profile.
Yeat shows up to his first-ever magazine cover shoot well before 2 p.m. (he’s a punctual guy), wearing a black leather trench coat and boots, even though it’s a 100-degree September day in L.A. With his girlfriend Symone by his side, he rifles through a rack of designer clothes, before something catches his eye. It’s a black balaclava, custom-made by the brand Who Decides War. Yeat pulls it over his head and likes what he sees, nodding in approval. That is, until noticing a row of sparkly flowers stitched on top.
“I don’t like the sparkles with the flowers,” he mutters. “It’s kind of a weird vibe.” At his request, the flowers are removed. “That’s fye,” he nods, puffing on a strawberry mango vape.
An hour later, Yeat tracks me down in a hallway near his dressing room. Apparently he’s had a change of heart. He doesn’t want to do a sit-down interview anymore. His new plan? iMessage.
“I could just text you,” he says, trying to get out of a plan we had agreed to months ago. “You could just ask me a bunch of questions. I’ll answer all of them.”
Sensing this interview will never happen if we don’t do it right now, I pull my phone out of my pocket, start a new voice memo, and begin asking questions on the spot. Somehow, it works. It’s unclear if he’s too stunned to fight back, or too polite to walk away in the middle of a conversation, but he plays along.
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