Lil Yachty and James Blake have each strayed a fair distance from their artistic beginnings. On last year’s Let’s Start Here, the 26-year-old Atlanta rapper left fans baffled or delighted by his unexpected pivot to Pink Floyd-tinged psychedelia, having made his name on a string of oddly avant garde trap ditties. Meanwhile Blake, once the auteur crooner of the post-dubstep scene, is these days the go-to producer for rap A-listers looking for an injection of sad-robot soul.
So their collaboration makes perfect sense on paper, but in reality, Bad Cameo sounds like it’s got stuck in the planning stages, with handfuls of promising ideas stuffed awkwardly into ambient song shapes. There are moments of genuine spine-tingle – like hearing Yachty’s elastic voice funnelled through Blake’s black box of tricks on Missing Man and Transport Me, and the almost-gospel Red Carpet, an a cappella threaded with Hammond organ and analogue hiss.
But sometimes the fragile melancholy turns to mud. Save the Savior is a wasteland of throwaway boasts and bleating self-pity, while Blake morphs into Chris Martin halfway through the overblown Midnight. The album that Bad Cameo most wants to be, judging by the pitch-freaked vocals, skeletal piano and disjointed structures, is Frank Ocean’s Blonde. A noble aim, but a high bar to clear – not least when their confessionals are so submerged in watery effects.
