Music reviewer Anthony Fantano's long history of controversial takes makes each new review a must-watch. For his hip-hop album reviews in particular, it can be tough to predict how he'll feel about a project until he releases his YouTube review. This is especially true in the case of Drake, whose albums Fantano is hardly ever super fond of. But, that is what captivates fans the most about Fantano. His insight, or at times lack thereof, can come off as grouchy or misunderstanding of the genre. This has led to many actual rappers disagreeing with his take on their albums or their peers' albums.
In Fantano's latest review, he spoke about Portland rapper Yeat's new LP Aftërlyfe. Emerging from the underground with unique vocal inflections and experimental trap production, Yeat continues to ascend with each new project. In prior reviews, Fantano has not taken to Yeat's style. Using his 1-10 scale for rating albums, Fantano previously gave Yeat two scores of 4 for his albums Lyfë and 2 Alivë, respectively. But, for Aftërlyfe, Anthony had a different tone. Along with praising the album with a score of 7, he also had a few noteworthy comparisons for Yeat's approach.
Anthony Fantano's Bizarre Analogies
At around the 7-minute mark (7:05) of Fantano's Aftërlyfe review, he discusses how Yeat's vocal inflections resemble Kendrick Lamar's. "Not to mention all the times on this thing where Yeat is making all matter of weird, wild, out there sounds with his mouth, dousing them with effects and just filling the backgrounds of these tracks with them," he said. "He's a man of a dozen voices at this point, like Kendrick Lamar. Except instead of switching his style up for some kind of narrative point, Yeat is doing it just to be a silly goose seemingly."
Yeat and Lamar share very little in common in terms of artistry. However, Fantano's point of vocal manipulation is not necessarily wrong. Each of the two rappers certainly channels different characters in their music, but for very different purposes. Also throughout his review, Fantano said he prefers Aftërlyfe to Whole Lotta Red by Playboi Carti, in which he scored a 5 in 2020. In prior videos, Fantano always accused Yeat of being too influenced by Carti. But now, he alleges that the student has surpassed the teacher. What do you think of both of these opinions by Fantano? Watch his entire review of Yeat's Aftërlyfe above.