Rolling Stone’s September cover star Steve Lacy is getting ready to release Oh Yeah? his follow-up to 2022’s Gemini Rights. The Grammy-winning musician best known for the smash hit “Bad Habit” says that on this album, he’s focused on being as transparent as possible, which means letting fans in on more of his personality. Today, he dropped “Nice Shoes,” a single that he describes as a “trailer” for his upcoming album. The track hints at some new sonic territory for Lacy, featuring a fast-paced jungle-inspired breakbeat. He maintains the elements of his classic sound, however, towards the song’s end, which segues into a slow-rolling guitar melody that’s classic Steve Lacy.
“I feel safe enough and close enough to start talking about it now, and get the title out and just get the energy in the air,” Lacy says of his upcoming album. “I’ve never worked where I kind of announce it while I’m still working on it. I feel like rappers work until the last minute.”
Here’s everything we know about Steve Lacy’s upcoming album Oh Yeah?
He started working on the record shortly after Gemini Rights
It’s been three years since Lacy’s Grammy-winning album Gemini Rights. He says he started work on this next album shortly after. “I just kind of got in the studio right away. I’m always making things. It’s just what I do to hang out. I just make beats.”
What about that title?
As for what inspired him to call his album Oh Yeah?, all Lacy says in his cover store is, “the question’s important.”
His new single, “Nice Shoes” is a “trailer” for the album
On Friday, Lacy dropped “Nice Shoes,” his first new release since 2022. With lyrics that volley between playful and insightful (Lacy at one point muses on a “romantic boner,” as he describes it), the track leans on a fierce breakbeat that serves as a backdrop for Lacy’s specific brand of songwriting. “Crazy how you could be sad and not notice,” he sings. “All I need is my guitar and serotonin.”
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He’s thinking more about lyrics than he has in the past
Despite being best known for infectious hooks, Lacy says he approached lyrics far more intentionally on this new album. “When I first started making shit or producing stuff with the Internet, I would always make the beat, make a hook, and just give it away,” he says. “That was my process for a while, so words were always just kind of secondary. I’m like, ‘If my beat hard, this bass line hard, the chords hard, what else do we need?’ But now I’m like, ‘OK, I want to say shit how I would say shit.’ ”
According to the Internet’s Matt Martians, the album sounds like pop classics from an earlier time
Matt Martians of the Internet, the experimental R&B where Lacy got his start, says he’s heard some songs from the album and compares it to the pop standards of yesteryear. “When I heard the album, I said, ‘You really made a pop album. And not pop in the sense of current-day pop, but pop what it used to be as far as greats,’ ” Martians says. “He is getting into areas that I feel like are very reminiscent of a pop of yesteryear, which is very good.”
Lacy digs into electronic influences
One of the more surprising elements of the songs on Oh Yeah is how Lacy incorporates synthesizers and other electronic sounds. Lacy says he developed an interest in collecting synthesizers. “I have a good amount of synthesizers. I actually spent a lot of money trying to get the famous vintage ones,” he says. “I got the Juno, but I end up mostly using one that cost me about 900 bucks. I use the cheaper one the most. It’s all over the album, and I won’t say what that is because got to gatekeep that.”
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He recorded parts of the album in Paris
Lacy, an L.A. native, spent time in Paris recording his album.“I just love it,” Lacy says of the city. “I love the color of all the beiges and the lights and how old everything is, even the lighting at night. It’s just the vibe.” The city inspired his sense of directness on the album. He goes on to say, “I think it inspires me based on the clarity that I have being here.”
The album will be out soon
While Lacy remains cryptic about when exactly Oh Yeah is set to drop, all signs indicate it’ll be here in the near future
