Yung Lean
Warlord

2.5
average

Review

by davidwave4 USER (55 Reviews)
February 26th, 2016 | 159 replies

Release Date: 2016 | Tracklist

Review Summary: Warlord boasts a newly engaged and attentive Lean, but does little to fix Lean's glaring problems.

Of the things inherent to humanity and life itself, regrets are far and away the most ubiquitous. For artists in particular, the weight of regrets can weigh heavy, especially as critical and commercial expectations take their toll. That’s why someone like Yung Lean is so interesting and peculiar to me. His music, like a lot of popular rap music, exists almost wholly without consequence or remorse. But unlike the music of people like Travi$ Scott, Lil Uzi Vert, or Night Lovell (his closest sonic analogues), Lean’s music bears with it the unmistakable sonic signs of regret. The world he’s built for himself is an exclusively mournful one, however, his lyrics exist outside of this world almost entirely. Aside from token mentions of being sad, Lean gives us very little to empathize with.

His second studio album, Warlord, does very little to change this. For a near-singular force in the dying internet “cloud rap” subgenre, Lean’s most recent effort carries little pomp or circumstance, and the tracks themselves do little to establish a sense of agency or forward motion. But there is at least a sense of effort put in, and that slight degree of investment makes Warlord all the better than its predecessor.

The biggest stylistic difference between Warlord and Unknown Memory comes in the form of Lean himself. For an unbearably large portion of Unknown Memory, Lean was content to wail aimlessly into the narcotized abyss that his producers laid out for him. Tracks like “Leanworld” took simple ideas and turned them into dirges so dense and unenjoyable that they seemingly inspired the despair inherent to Lean’s aesthetic. “Immortal” instantly changes this. Lean has never been a necessarily good lyricist (even by the Dadaist standards set by other internet-famous “rappers”). But on this track and the following tracks, he actually makes an effort to imbue his nonsensical boasts with ferocity. To put it in traditional rap terms, Lean actually sounds hungry here in a way that he hasn’t for the duration of his “career.” “Afghanistan” actually has a hook that could plant it in the Top 40, and “Fantasy” is just simple enough to mix well with other tracks in a club mix. And “Hoover,” like “Yoshi City” before it, serves as an unexpectedly poignant and powerful track from our dear Leandoer, featuring a beat that would make Yeezus-era Kanye flip his ***.

And that’s saying something for an album like this, where pretty much every post-Neptunes influence is indulged faithfully. Yung Gud does the majority of the heavy lifting on this album (as usual for a Yung Lean project), and he does not pull any punches. He deftly goes from Mike Will-style arpeggios (“Fantasy”) to Arca style sonic mayhem (“Hoover”) over the course of just a few tracks. His production stamp can be felt on all the album’s best tracks, and his absences (“Fire,” and “Shawty U Know…”) are where Lean decides to pull his best Kid Cudi and wail anguishedly, killing any kind of good-will the prior tracks established. “Shawty U Know What It Do” bears specific mention for being Lean’s most obvious attempt to “go pop,” while also being the most colossal failure in his catalogue (and considering Unknown Memory and “Leanworld,” that’s a statement). The concept is sterling on paper: Lean lends his narcotized and vaguely melodic flow to a Mustard-knockoff beat. A+ idea. But in application, a lot goes wrong. The beat, while basic enough, is a bit too anxious and shifty for Lean, and his delivery is really rough. The lyrics, as usual, are nothing to sneeze at. Even if you’re committed to Lean’s shtick, this track wears out its welcome.

Writing about the lyrics here would demonstrate my near-remarkable ability to miss the point, so let’s just say that Lean does better in this area than he traditionally does. “Miami Ultras” and “Hoover” show a strengthening capacity for simile and word-play, and “Immortal” show that Lean’s internalized a lot of what “Yeezus” and “Rodeo” had to offer. “AF1S,” while not stunning, has Lean namedropping designers and brands with the best of them, and with the state of hip-hop being such that literally repeating the name of a brand ad-nauseum is considered best practices, I’m content listening to someone actually trying to at least appear not to be a shill.

So generally Warlord is okay. Compared to prior Lean projects, Warlord boasts the unique quality of being pretty much listenable from cover-to-cover. Featuring some of the best production from Yung Gud & Co., Lean’s new effort is consistent and well-produced. But one of the biggest problems I’ve had signing on with a Yung Lean project has and still is Yung Lean himself. As an MC he’s getting better, but to date he’s far from what anyone would term a “good” lyricist. And that’d be fine if his personality and delivery were enjoyable (The Life of Pablo is a masterclass on how personality makes up for lyrical deficiency).

But they're not.

Lean continues to exist first and foremost as a joke, not just because of his aesthetic (the promo pictures for this album literally have Lean posing as a green-haired Madonna, veil and all), but also for his ability to take something we take for granted and making it seem impossibly complicated. With beats like Yung Gud's and Yung Sherman’s, any run-of-the-mill Soundcloud MC could go H.A.M. on them. Folks like Denzel Curry, Night Lovell, and Bones take similar instrumentals and do them justice. They make it sound effortless. Hell, even rappers like Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty can pull together a decent melody to complement their tracks. But Lean, even on his best tracks, makes it sound belabored and rough. He fights tooth-and-nail for a hook or a good couplet, but even the one’s he fights for are clunky and awkward. Lean just isn’t good at rapping. All he has going for him are a who’s who of A-list internet producers and a distinct sense of how to push people’s nostalgia buttons. But that’s not enough to carry an album or a career. If Yung Lean would actually sit down and write something of substance, something that truly elevates his work beyond the surface level appeal of “oh, it’s some white kid who ‘raps,’” opinions might change. It’s happened before. Drake, in 2009, was a terrible rapper who made 2010s-era Lil Wayne look skilled. But by the time that Drake’s sophomore album Take Care was released, Drake had become a more introspective and meaningful lyricist. And while Drake may not be a perfect analogue to Mr. Leandoer here, it’s clear that evolution among meme rappers is possible. Lean’s just not interested in evolving. And that stagnation of ideas and ability is something that no number of brilliant beats and guest features can fix.