It’s the return of everyone’s favourite bisexual musical polymath!
Anyone who knows me has had to listen to me witter on about my love for Steve Lacy – 2022’s Gemini Rights remains probably my favourite album of this decade so far, a sleek, horny, angry and brilliant piece of music making, pushing R&B into fresh territory to the extent that it was somehow hard to think it even was R&B. It fused Prince style slow jams, bossa nova, grungy guitar and funky beats into a delicious stew that I am still feasting on years later. And in the breakout hit, Bad Habit, Lacy went from cult artist to high(ish) profile star.
To say I was excited about the follow up is probably one of the understatements of the century. To quote our favourite opening pod question, so what was I expecting, and what did I get? I was expecting a lot. What I got was NOT what I was expecting…but is that a bad thing? More on that in a minute.
For those not in the know, a quick Steve Lacy potted history. Born in Compton to a Black American mother and Filipino father (who died when he was 10), he first came to attention via the left field R&B group The Internet in the early 2010s, themselves on a Odd Future offshoot. The Internet were a fabulously curious outfit, openly queer and recognisably R&B while feeling looser and weirder than a lot of their contemporaries.
By this point, Lacy had already established himself as a producer and songwriter of note, famously able to mix an album on an iPhone and still make it sounds amazing. Artists as varied as Solange, Vampire Weekend, Blood Orange and Kendrick L were lining up to work with him or use his songs. What’s interesting, despite that, is that I think it took a while for Lacy to find his own voice as a solo artist. While I enjoyed 2019 debut Apollo XXI, particularly the single Playground, there wasn’t that much there to suggest the giant musical leap he’d make on Gemini Rights, stomping straight onto Prince’s playground with an album of such confidence and quality, it takes your breath away.
And now to Oh Yeah? 4 years later. One thing we know Lacy likes to do is evolve, so I wasn’t necessarily expecting more of the same. Even the title seems to suggest a bit of pushback – oh yeah, is that what you were expecting? First track nice shoes dropped quite a while back, confused the hell out of me – a strange nihilistic chant to a jungle beat, it felt doom-laden and odd. But then came the feeling, and boy oh boy did I fall hard for this track. Everything I love about a Steve Lacy song rolled into one – a soaring beautiful love song with a heartbreaking chorus (Am I your baby?).
Interestingly, those two songs actually express the rather schizophrenic nature of this record. It’s a lot more downbeat and ballad filled than Gemini Rights, and even has some folky stylings. And then mixed amongst those beautiful ballads are quite confrontational, tough workouts like doom and nice shoes. And then, even more fascinating, are Lacy’s songs with collaborators. Other single is it cool? with SZA is pretty recognisably Lacy – a groovy slow jam with bubbling synths and anchored by a growling guitar, with Lacy flipping between emotional anxiety, sincerity and flippancy – something he does across the record lyrically.
But track 4, pure colour a collab with R&B royalty Erykah Badu, goes into a whole other direction altogether and pulls off something quite remarkable quite early in the album’s sequencing – it’s a meditative, spacey and genuinely psychedelic outing, with little in common with the rest of the album. Badu is known as an innovative artist, not afraid of making bold moves, but this is mind-blowing stuff, and it’s the moment in the record when I realised that Lacy was not in the slightest bit interested in spoon feeding more of the same.
The same is true in a very different style with following track show you me, a folky ballad that’s almost like a sad boy singalong (hey, and Steve a word of advice – maybe stop falling in love with guys who aren’t even sure they’re gay?). Neither of these tracks are anything like he made for Gemini Rights and I couldn’t love him more for it. Let’s also take a minute to talk about the production – the SOUND of this record is fascinating: loads of synth bass, drum machines, acoustic guitars, reverbed vocals and vintage synths. It’s such a clever sound – clean but messy, future facing but nostalgic, emotional but brittle. I honestly don’t know how he concocts the noise he puts together, but it is one of the most singular things about this record.
In fact, it’s such a peculiarly individual album, hurling between genres with gay (more gay than bi these days if you ask me, Steve) abandon, it can be quite a disorientating listen, and it won’t appeal to everyone. His lyrics are also quite in your face – he’s a man with a lot of feelings, often at the same time, and you need to ride with the flow. I actually think it’s the most vulnerable album he’s ever made. nothing, for example, is an extraordinary ballad, one of the best he’s ever made, achingly beautiful and charmingly simple.
Criticisms? Well, initially, I thought the sequencing was a bit odd, but I’ve come to love it. Even nice shoes now makes so much more sense as an angry intro to the smooth AF second half jam in your world. But I do think it can be hard to read the pace of the album at times, and it’s certainly not an ‘easy’ record to digest, way less so than Gemini Rights. Finally, I wonder if it’s missing one final killer tune to round it off: I like closer bebe, but it feels like a mid-album groove than a proper finale.
What you”ll make it of it is quite beyond me, nor the wider music loving public. But I think Lacy has cemented his reputation as a generational artist pushing his music into new and surprising places. Over to you, brothers…?
thisisnothappening.net 
What a beautiful write-up Brother David, (you should do this for a living etc etc) but it really brings out your desire for Lacy front and centre. And highlights lots that I perhaps needed pointing out as I’ve got used to this fascinating and challenging record. But it’s always daunting when you have to follow up on an album that one of the group adores. So here goes….
First off: I loved Gemini Rights. It was such a breath of fresh air. As you point out so well, it was planting its flag firmly on Prince’s lawn, and some of the tracks on there – Bad Habit of course, but also Helmet, .Mercury, Sunshine…. – it really seemed to find that sweet spot of rawness, realness and funk that I didn’t know I needed.
So I approached this with trepidation, not sure of what I’d find, and not being totally sure of the singles; as good as is it cool? was, it was really different. Gone were the ‘analogue’ drum kit, raw jams and melodies and layers of guitars, instead drum machines, synths, acoustic. The vocals and harmonies remained, but they were built on different foundations. And really, I struggled with it all. All I loved about GR wasn’t really there, save fleeting moments. It was like going round to a mate’s house that you loved spending time in to find they’d redecorated the lush, comfy furnishings with white plastic and monochrome artwork. It felt much more closed, direct and claustrophobic.
Against that backdrop I struggled with letting the album in. The feel was so different, and that made it hard for the lyrics to penetrate. And when I did sit with them, I found them grating and hard to chime with. A real stream of consciousness feel was ok but made songs feel a bit rough and unfinished (see nothing, which felt very much like a demo, albeit a lovely one), with words spilling over lines, and interrupting flow (I chimed with a lot of what Needle Drop said in their review at this stage). At the heart was Lacy’s laments with a lack of lasting love and connection, (or ‘too much fucking and cheating for it to work’ as I coined it). Sure, things ran deeper, but finding that it was the first album Lacy made ‘clean’ of weed or gummies surprised me as it felt really like the words has just spilled out across the page rather than been as focused as they could.
But things stood out: SZA’s collab was still awesome, the feeling was tender and emotional, show you me was fun and playful (but I still wince at the ‘coochie’), and and doom grew on me, added to by the amazing video. However, I couldn’t land with the Erykah Badu track, pure colour, as good a trip-hop tribute as it was, it felt like Badu was so underused and drowned in reverb that it could’ve been anyone. And if anything summed up the good/bad struggle, it was nice shoes / in your world. I found the former ‘half’ jarring and clunky, and the latter a shimmering slice of beauty that got as close to Gemini Rights as anything, full of smoky, dusty energy and real character, until the end is ruined by the breakbeats. I found myself confused by the dichotomy, as if Lacy wanted to move on – and the synths and acoustic on this record really do work well – but couldn’t fully work out how to do it.
That was a week or two ago, and things are changing. I struggled to get through the album as often as last week but things have softened. The tracks are getting into my subconscious, and the elements that grate are wearing off, but I am not infatuated by the whole. Perhaps that will come.
It is, without doubt, a step forward in ambition, trying to move sound and vibe on, and it works well in places, at times incredibly, but also goes down some blind alleys too. As a flow, it doesn’t quite gel for me yet, but I can only salute Lacy for his willingness to jump ahead when he could’ve happily made GR II. I’m not sure if it’s going to be a Top 10 album (partly because jesus, there are so many amazing records out only 7 months into the year) but it’s trending the right direction, for sure.
I would forgive anyone for hating this album. I would totally get it. I think you make an early decision (consciously or not), will you allow yourself to love it or find reasons to hate it.
For me, it immediately put such a big smile on my face that I chose the former. I was also fascinated as to how you guys would take it. David, I was really not sure how it would go for you even. I honestly thought you might hate it.
For the sake of brevity, clarity and because its my main format of thought and communication … I am switching to Joey-bullets;
I could buy a pair of really nice shoes
Life is but a stain, it’s not a tattoo
I’ll write some more coherent stuff later.
This is great. And I totally get the Blood Orange question. I went there too.