Steve 'Flash' JuonIt feels like a tradition now. Once a year I look at a Yung Lean album and attempt to discern what informed his rise to fame and fortune. Today’s attempt is “Warlord,” and from the start I can at least see why the single “Highway Patrol” caught on. Mike Dean (and others) provided a deep, pulsing, vibrating musical landscape for Lean and his friend bladee to slowly sing and/or rap over. Silly lyrics like “Don’t fuck with me I’m Hulk Hogan/you saw my face but I’m so numb” do nothing for me, but the song itself is a bop. It sounds like something that A$AP Rocky would do — NYC’s own “chop and screw” style.
Inevitably that’s where I hit a wall with Yung Lean. He makes some songs that sound slick and give my car’s subwoofers a workout, but when I try to dig deeper beneath the surface there’s nothing there. Let me give you an example so I’m not just talking out of my ass – “Fantasy” has some of the most simplistic bars ever purposefully committed to wax and sold at retail. No amount of production no matter how slick can cover up how vapid his rhymes are or how little enthusiasm he has to rap them.
“I don’t want to hurt you/movin’ round in circles
Will do if I have to/all I do is work you
I got G’s on G’s like burgers/movin’ round like lurkers
I lost all my urges/pink polo painted circus”
The truth is Jonatan Håstad seems like a decent enough chap. In his interviews he comes off far more intelligent than in any of his songs. He seems a bit embarrassed about his viral fame and defers to the pioneers of rap music who came before him. He knows he’s a white Swedish rapper in a black musical art and he’s aware of the privilege he has others do not. I’m alright with him as a person but struggle with songs like “Eye Contact” where his similes would be rejected by any serious poet in or outside of rap: “I’m so high that I’m flying like a bird bird.” Bro. No. And stop trying to rhyme anything with the “erd” or “urd” sound in it with that. The song reaches peak annoying levels a minute in.
I can only surmise that the young Mr. Lean was pouring up some lean during the majority of his writing and recording sessions. In fact if you told me that he was completely inebriated on every track from “Warlord” I would believe you. It’s not because he talks about his habits constantly, because that could just be a cool facade he puts on for his audience. It’s that he genuinely sounds like your friend who stumbled out of the bar at 1 AM who is waiting for a taxi or an Uber because he has no business driving himself home. (Haven’t you ever wondered why bars have parking lots in the first place? Designated drivers sure… but what about the people who drive to one by themselves? I digress.)
There’s definitely some magic or “Hocus Pocus” if you will to Yung Lean. I’m not sure I can ever be convinced that his songs are deep or have any substance beyond the swimming pools full of liquor he wants to dive into (and he’s no Kendrick — not even close). On the other hand if you stick to the definition of “emo rap” most people plug his music into, he’s actually about par for the course as a performer. That translates to him being a rapper I don’t mind hearing from occasionally but one I don’t purposefully seek out the rest of the time. “Warlord” may be one of his better efforts but it will be many months after this review before I play it again. It may even be years.