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Photo: Matt Ty

Though blessed and favored, mankind’s greatest downfall is the knowledge that one day it all must come to an end. We go to great lengths to prevent death’s arrival, and though we surrender ourselves to trends and lifestyle changes to delay the date of our demise, we still lie awake anxious of what our final moments might be. Who will hold me as I float into oblivion? Who will keep my spirit company as death’s dynamic shroud is pulled over my eyes? Today, I type this article knowing that I alone know what my last moments will be—or rather, I know what they were.

On 12:01 Friday, February 24, I ascended into the AftërLyfe, a 22-track sonic odyssey composed by modern hip-hop’s most respected iconoclast: Yeat. Joined by longtime collaborator BNYX and a host of AAA features (Kranky Kranky, LUH GEEKY, YoungBoy NBA), Yeat’s newest project doesn’t just cement him as a prominent figure in modern hip-hop’s cultural canon, it dismantles the canon entirely, leaving only Yeat in its wake. Despite the sheer magnitude of Yeat’s cultural presence, AftërLyfe is an album that refuses to be preceded by its reputation. On a rainy Los Angeles evening, I left my friends and family behind... all to be annihilated in the austere glory of AftërLyfe

Whether lost in the hazy ambiance of “No morë talk” or possessed by the pounding bass signals of “Nun id change,” the grasp that Yeat has on my soul is just as unyielding as it is deserved. Most of my experience listening to this record was spent levitating four feet off the ground, and when Yeat said “I’m sipping on lean, lean, I’m green, I’m high as a bird bitch” on “Type Monëy,” a beam of light shot out of my body. Every aural element on AftërLyfe is polished, pristine, and a powerful step forward from both of Yeat’s 2022 projects. If there is only one album that appears on your radar in 2023, let it be AftërLyfe.

Listen to AftërLyfe below: