Steve Lacy, the Grammy Award-winning neo-soul pop auteur, has returned with Oh yeah?, the undisputed follow-up to his 2022 opus, Gemini Rights. Where that album was a practice in complete pop maximalism, Oh yeah? feels much more subtle but still has some heavy-hitting features like SZA, Erykah Badu, and Montreal’s own Cecile Believe. It’s an album that moves quickly at a clip, touching on Gen Z love, affairs, trust, and Lacy’s own personal demons.
The titular opener tricks you into thinking it’s going to be a synthy ambient track and then morphs into a hazy neo-soul anthem, classic Lacy, who loves to genre-flip mid-song. The next track, “is it cool?” might be the most honest and straightforward Lacy has ever been in his lyricism—singing about self-sabotage and being unfaithful, opening the door for SZA’s enrapturing verses. Lacy’s signature high-octave guitar madness is mixed down in the track, something he did on a lot of Gemini Rights as well. After “the feeling,” appears with a funky bass riff and some light acoustic guitar. The vocal structure and synths bring to mind the recent work on Blood Orange’s Essex Honey, so it’s right up my alley. “pure colour (feat. Erykah Badu)” has a very laid-back trip hop vibe and has Badu sounding like some kind of creature. It’s an interesting choice, but kind of slows the whole album down a bit.
After “show you me,” a weird acoustic number, we get the grungy indie guitar-riffed “doom” which is easily the catchiest track of Oh yeah?, with Lacy’s nonchalant and somewhat vulgar lyrics about modern romance woes. Honestly, most songwriters who would have a verse like “I’m a big baby, suckin’ on big titties” would annoy me, but Lacy earns it. He then ends the song with an indietronic dirge, singing “blah blah blah, shut the fuck up.” I can easily see this being called and responded to at his shows. While Oh yeah? doesn’t have the immediate star power as Gemini Rights did right from jump street, it’s a great addition to the Lacy verse that I’ll be revisiting.
