2093 can stay far, far away

By Reagan Rozzi

Picture of Jillian Childress listening to Yeat’s “2093” in class taken by Reagan Rozzi

I remember the day I listened to “2093” more vividly than I remember any pivotal memory of my youth. There was a certain golden glow about the sunset. I walked with a pep in my step and a sparkle in my eyes. I was happy. 

But now I see the sky is a darker shade. I find myself laughing less and less. Any childlike wonder I once had has been stripped from me. And at the center of it all, the one to blame for my nihilistic decline: Noah Olivier Smith and the release of his newest album.

Smith, known to the public as “Yeat,” is fairly new to the modern rap scene and brings an experimental, unique quality to the table. His low-pitched, fast-paced, slurred and mumbly flow, combined with his variety of bass-boosted beats, introduces a new category of rap unlike many artists today. However, just because one’s art has an individualistic quality, that does not always mean it should be shared with the public.

Yeat had not dropped any singles prior to the album’s full release, which, after listening to it, I can see why. In full transparency, this album completely changed my life—for the worse. “2093” is a 70-minute waste of unique creativity. While Yeat possesses the ability to create products that have the potential to reframe societal standards of rap music, he simply falls short. His absurd lyricism is so derisory that to classify it as abstract is an insult to the word itself—not that one would know this from listening; they would have to search for the lyrics as his annunciation and vocal clarity is nonexistent. Each incoherent, inarticulate and indecipherable line is so blatantly careless that I shudder to imagine a tenth Yeat album. 

The verbal atrocity that is “2093” consists of track names which, frankly, I digested with sickening difficulty, the way one would digest a package of expired milk. “Lyfestyle,” “ILUV,” “Team ceo” and “Mr. Inbetweenit” are only a few mentions of his grisly and inadequate ability to construct a decent song title.

Yeat also possesses a nauseatingly repetitive nature that only contributes to the idiocy of his songwriting. The album’s introductory track, “Psycho CEO,” which one would expect to be a strong opening to the new project, includes incomprehensibly dense bars such as “We got G-Wagons, big money, big boss” and “I like being number one on hypebeast.” If this abomination of the English language was ever shown to a pilgrim, or a Victorian child, for example, the outcome would include—at least—an immediate descent into a psychological lunacy. Even as a modern member of society, I can barely grasp the idea of publishing such comically horrific lyricism.

If we are somehow able to look past the album’s absence of serious creative elements, there is still the structure to be discussed—or lack thereof. Yeat follows no motifs, no consistent themes and absolutely no progressing storyline. The album opens meekly, reaches a two-centimeter tall peak of tolerability, then dips back into a flatline of insufferable listening. I am fully convinced that a 5th-grade boy with a SoundCloud account and a pair of cheap earbuds could create an exact copy of Yeat’s work and maybe do so even better than the unjustly paid artist. 

Out of the 22 songs, I give credit to a single song for the sole fact that it didn’t provoke me with the urge to absolutely demolish my phone with a mallet so that the music would stop playing. “Breathe,” the highest streamed track off of the album, is catchy and consistent with its tempo. Many people took a liking to the melody after the artist posted an advertisement for the song on his TikTok, possibly because it is quite literally one of the easiest songs to understand compared to the other jumbled compositions. I would recommend this song, and only this song, to any listener.

While Yeat includes only two rather impressive features—Lil Wayne and Future—I simply do not have much, if any, praise to give “2093.” I admire the album’s attempted futuristic aesthetic, and I respect Yeat as a working artist who possesses a unique persona, however, he genuinely dropped the ball with this release. Personally, I would not advise anybody, regardless of their perception of Yeat, to place time aside to listen to the album. In fact, if I were given the choice between re-listening to the album or being forced to hear a compilation of simultaneous nails on a chalkboard, metal against metal and infants screaming, I would choose the latter. Every time.