Lil Yachty Just Dropped The Best Love Song Of The Year So Far

1) I’ve recently been of the mind that the world doesn’t need any more overwrought piano ballads. We have enough. Adele has enough. No more please. Find a new way to sing about love.

2) Lil Yachty is not for everyone. His music sounds even more DIY than early Makonnen, and his warbly voice is a klaxon compared to Fetty Wap‘s honk. But even if those things bother you, it’s hard not to find his music fascinating, or at least to find the fact that he’s the buzziest rapper on the internet right now fascinating.

With that as the context, I am entirely convinced that his new song “India (Oh Love)” is the best love song of 2016.

1) There is no piano. Producer Dolan Beatz constructed a post-chillwave twinkle on top of thumping 808s and dinky hi-hats. If Toro y Moi or Com Truise put this out as an instrumental, indie bros would be texting each other flame and wave emoji.

2) Such a shoddy vocal take makes 808s-era Kanye sound like Imogen Heap, and yet it totally makes sense, it feeds into the song’s emotional vulnerability. “Come fuck with me, come have my kids…Put my right hand on the Bible / my love for you’s undeniable / my story’s unwriteable / it’s true, true for you.” When’s the last time you heard a rapper pour his heart out and put his guard down like this (when not singing about lean)?

Ride the love boat below.