Lil Yachty Hopes You Have One Reaction to His Upcoming James Blake Collab: ‘What the F–k’

  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
  • Oops!
    Something went wrong.
    Please try again later.
Lil Yachty - Credit: Getty Images
Lil Yachty - Credit: Getty Images

Lil Yachty thinks his fans will be surprised not just by his upcoming collaborative album with James Blake but that he even knows James Blake to begin with. “I think James has worked with a quite substantial amount of hip-hop artists, but this project is just like … It’s so left … for both of us,” Yachty said in an Instagram video talking about the project. And he’s not wrong: the English singer-songwriter has worked with Jay-Z, SZA, and Anderson.Paak, Andre 3000, 21 Savage, and others throughout his career, and now, apparently, Yachty. “And then aside from the one picture that James posted – which he doesn’t have many followers, actually – I don’t think people know that we know each other exist.”

“So,” he continued, “It’s just gonna be like, ‘What the fuck? When they do this?'”

More from Rolling Stone

The video, in which Yachty is wearing a Snoop Dogg football jersey and surrounded by a Star Trek-worthy wall full of recording gear, teases a full-length album, Bad Cameo, billed to James Blake and Lil Yachty. There’s no release date but Yacthy’s post promises, “This is real … soon.”

Blake’s post with Yachty doesn’t appear to be anywhere on his grid anymore, but pictures of the two of them are still floating around, so at least a couple of Blake’s 634,000 followers also knew Yachty and were excited about the possibility of a collaboration. Incidentally, Yachty has 12.1 million followers; Blake’s follower count is about 5.2 percent of Yachty’s, a slim margin but apparently significant enough. One of Blake’s videos shows him fiddling around with a wall of sci-fi gear that resembles the one Yachty recorded his video in front of.

But while fans might be surprised by this specific collaboration, they should be used to seeing Yachty step out of his comfort zone to dabble in new genres. Just last year, Lil Yachty pivoted from rap to psychedelic rock with Let’s Start Here.

Best of Rolling Stone