Lil Yachty - Lil Boat 2

Pitchfork 58

A sequel in name only, Yachty’s leaden, rap-heavy album demands that the listener accept Yachty on his terms and shamelessly argues that he can be anything he wants to be.

The Guardian 40

In trading his sunlit humour for tedious boasts, the rap star has only succeeded in giving more ammunition to his many critics

Lil Yachty recently pronounced himself “devastated” by the lukewarm critical and commercial reaction to his 2017 debut album Teenage Emotions. You could see why its sales figures came as a disappointment. His was a very modern rise to fame – instead of hustling demos or carving out a name in rap battles and open mic nights, he came to prominence appearing in fashion influencers’s Instagram posts, while his music attracted notice on the soundtrack to a viral comedy video. It’s the kind of success that might struggle to translate into something more tangible, like lasting record sales – but, still, if you’ve got 4.9 million Instagram followers, you might expect more than 44,000 of them to buy your album in its week of release.

Equally, you could see why Teenage Emotions failed to get fans into shops. You didn’t have to be the kind of rap aficionado horrified by the self-styled King of Teens’s punkish refusal to pay due reverence to his forebears (he claimed he knew fewer than five songs by Biggie Smalls and Tupac combined) to think that, over 70 minutes, the album spread his oft-questioned talents quite thin. More interest was aroused by its cover – featuring a gay couple kissing – than its contents, which his detractors would say is Lil Yachty all over.

Related: Lil Yachty: ‘Older hip-hop people don't understand evolution – or don't want it’