The future through Yeat’s eyes: "2093"

By Sam Shipman

Yeat has never been an artist I have spent more than a couple of minutes talking about in any music-related conversation. When talking about his music with others, I foolishly placed his style of music in the same category as other artists who create “rage music”. The style of rage music demands the listener to react as fast as possible to the barrage of noise attacking their ears rather than listening to a song a dozen times, unearthing the artist's message carefully with each new listen. Projects such as Lil Uzi’s Pink Tape, Summrs’ FALLEN RAVEN, and Ken Carson’s A Great Chaos all started to shift how I felt about this genre in general but I never expected Yeat to be the one to completely change my perspective. 

2093, Yeat’s latest project doesn’t assault you with noise, it raises the bar and drags you into his world. The minute “Psycho CEO” begins, it is clear the air is different with this album and we are not dealing with the usual rage experienced with other Yeat opening tracks. 2093’s sound is otherworldly, completely tuning out the lyrical value.  The instrumentals alone feel like being beamed up into the unknown. The beats are made up of flashy synths with sample flips that echo throughout the songs. The entire record has a very transcendental sound, yet still stays true to  Yeat’s general sound. In an interview with 032c magazine, Yeat comments that he doesn’t tell his producers what to do, he just has them find the most futuristic or different-sounding beats and then puts his personal style around them. 

In the same interview, Yeat comments on how 2093 is based on the idea of a dystopian society. This idea is projected through the coherent futuristic instrumentation on the record and its lyrics. Yeat directly mentions how people are bound to experience this dystopian future in the song “Tell më.” In this song, Yeat describes how people who don’t understand his perspective cannot reach his idea of the future, which he repeatedly dubs throughout the album as 2093. The song also highlights that people tell Yeat to “go help himself” to which he responds by pushing them away saying “I guess two-zero-nine-three is not for you” and “I wish you could see like me”. It’s great to see Yeat expressing himself through his music more thoroughly compared to previous projects where Yeat focuses more on the sound his music creates rather than any sort of message. 

Yeat covers a wide range of topics on the album, he raps about his narcissism, drug abuse, and most notably, a conquest to be the richest person possible. In Yeat’s progression as an artist, he states that one of the only things that have changed is that he is now “dirtbag rich,” and that it helps him in his work since he can “lock in and do whatever [he] wants”. Yeat does not censor his lust for money; on the record, he mentions multiple times that his main motivation is generating the most amount of money possible. Songs such as “Möre” or “Bought the Earth” revolve around Yeat’s conquest for wealth. Both of these songs produce a similar sound to the rest of the record but also show Yeat expressing his struggles through his lyrics which could be a result of him cutting back on drug use. As opposed to how he acted on previous projects where he recorded many of the songs intoxicated.     

Yeat mentioned in his interview with 032c that his inspiration comes from music completely removed from the rap scene, saying that “if you sit there listening to other rappers all day, you start to sound like them”. This has always been reflected in Yeat’s work and still holds on 2093 only having features from Lil Wayne and Future, keeping the record true to being about Yeat’s perspective.  

While 2093 has a strong tracklist, it suffers from being oversaturated with the sheer amount of content on the record, this abundance of tracks takes away from any clear message Yeat is trying to poke at with the themes of the dystopian world that is 2093. If  Yeat cut back on the record’s massive tracklist 2093 could feel more like an entirely new listening experience for fans, rather than just a new sound Yeat is pursuing. While the album’s deeper message is an interesting perspective, it’s clear Yeat is more concerned with rolling out content than achieving an artistic message about the future. A day after 2093’s release, Yeat released 2093 (P2), the same record adding on two more songs randomly sprinkled into the project, one of those songs including a Drake feature.   

2093 is truly a treat for fans of Yeat’s work. Yeat’s dystopian future is by far the best-produced project he’s released while also creatively embracing his aura through coherent lyrical depth. Within the genre of rage music, Yeat takes the genre’s first step toward a more fleshed-out body of work, an angle that will boost the popularity of the genre by touching listeners who are interested in experiencing a thought-provoking idea from an artist instead of just randomized songs with no clear vision. Whether it’s the future of rage music or the future of society, 2093 has a lot to offer for fans of rap, rage, and Yeat.