17 July 2026
At just 28 years old, Steve Lacy is a name that has seemingly been around for years, gaining his first Grammy nomination at just 17. From this point, his reputation exploded with his lo-fi take on neo-soul and R&B, earning him features with Tyler, The Creator, and Vampire Weekend, as well as production credits for Kendrick Lamar. Despite being a sought-after producer, his solo career in 2021 saw the atmospheric angst of the bedroom track ‘Dark Red’ gain the TikTok treatment. Only a year later, ‘Bad Habit’ would blow Lacy into the stratosphere – becoming far too large for the venues he was scheduled to appear at. While most artists would capitalise, Lacy took 4 years, refusing a quick follow-up in favour of painstakingly personalising ‘Oh Yeah?’ in response to that fame and newfound creative freedom.
Bursts of synth open the titular ‘Oh Yeah?’, with a drum machine underpinning a more spacey, electronic feel. While opening with a direct pivot from the minimal R&B, the SZA-featuring ‘Is It Cool’ and tenderly textured ‘The Feeling’ are the closest Lacy gets to his past. ‘The Feeling’ pairs a wobbly, pitch-adjusted synth and acoustic guitar with layered harmonies on ambivalent refrain ‘Am I Your Baby’, while the starpower on ‘Is It Cool’ propels the metronomic, warbling lo-fi textures into a back-and-forth reflection on cheating.
Previously citing ‘Static’ as a turning point in his creativity, Lacy’s personal renaissance on the track is expanded with sonic and lyrical veracity. ’Pure Colour’ is pensive but stomping, a soulful trip-hop strut with a pitch-adjusted ring from the synth lingering just behind Erykah Badu’s hushed vocals. The minimalism continues with ‘Show You Me’, an acoustic search for love with the typically layered harmonies reflecting romantic indecision. While his lyrics are reflective, they’re presented in such an unpolished fashion that they’re sometimes squirm-inducing as Lacy bares all, seemingly favouring an instinctive process, for better or worse.
The jump from minimal acoustics to the indie-rock-adjacent ‘Doom’ creeps in slowly, allowing the subdued tone of the prior tracks to taper off, emphasising Lacy’s commitment to project cohesion. However, lyrics of ‘I’m a big baby/sucking on big titties’ and ‘I’ve found my head up in my ass/I’ve been an asshole in the past’ detonate the track into juvenile absurdity, while lacking the self-awareness to truly land as anything other than a childish misstep. With a foray into acoustic balladry, Lacy’s ode to one-sided love on ‘Nothing’ earnestly admits ‘Nothing can keep you off my mind’, which strikes in direct contrast to the immaturity of the prior track.
Taking cues from Tyler, The Creator’s ‘two-titles under one song’ approach, penultimate track ‘Nice Shoes/In Your World’ is a textural odyssey. From slow, stuttering synth and drums, it erupts into a full-blown breakbeat with repeated ‘make it stop/make it stop’, eventually slowing into buzzily modulated synth. With spoken word, Lacy reflects, ‘I need to go back to my world […]it’s too much being here’ framed as a goodbye to a lover, yet easily construed as a response to the resounding levels of fame caused by his sophomore project. Bookended by the same breakbeat, the 9-minute epic is less two-parter, more jungle collage of intrusive thoughts and reflections about a place he doesn’t belong. Closing on a more dour note, ‘Bebe’, with metallic guitar strums weaponised as percussion and Lacy’s pitched-up vocals, sounds like Frank Ocean recording in a garage.
With a rare hands-off approach from his label, Lacy refuses to take the easy route, delivering a texturally ambitious response to fame via the lens of love – often framing it as a romance, or ‘world’ he can’t be a part of, while also turning on himself with candour verging on self-flagellation. It is a remarkably reflective record. Beyond the singles, this project is as far away from the world of ‘Gemini Rights’ as Lacy can get without shifting genre. Anyone expecting more of the same Lo-fi R&B approach may be disappointed, as Lacy’s DIY production and penchant for layering remain throughout the project, but filtered through the lens of stardom, indie rock and the darker side of the dancefloor. Following his most successful project, this reflective, genre-exploring work is a bold move, as ‘Oh Yeah?’ feels transitional and occasionally unpolished. Lacy is working out his next steps to avoid the dreaded ‘TikTok artist’ status while retaining the creative processes that made him stand out from such an early stage – what comes next is uncertain, but Lacy has shed the expectation of chart-chasing in favour of retaining his voice.
Rating: 7.5/10
Words by Keir Shields