Lil Yachty has put Akademiks on blast for claiming that Playboi Carti is behind his recent artistic reinvention, accusing the media personality of peddling false information.
During a recent Twitch live stream, the Off the Record podcast host said the Atlanta rapper told him that he was in the studio with Carti one night and Carti “made him change his entire style.”
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“Lil Yachty in my studio told me — this is before he dropped ‘Poland’ and ‘Strike’ and all this other shit — n-gga, he said he’s in the studio with Carti, and Carti made him change his entire style. Facts,” he claimed.
He added: “Once I heard that, I was like, ‘Damn! Carti’s like that?!’ Sorry, I have nothing more to say. Carti’s that n-gga.”
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After catching wind of his comments, Lil Yachty called out Akademiks on Twitter on Sunday (July 9) and refuted his claim, clarifying that his recent output was instead inspired by Tyler, The Creator.
“@Akademiks u r so insane, I didn’t tell u this at all,” he wrote. “Stop drinking bro. I said tyler encouraged me to take that route. Wtf.”
In an interview with Billboard in March, Lil Yachty credited Tyler with encouraging him to make his latest album Let’s Start Here, which marked a complete departure from his divisive “bubble-gum trap” sound and saw him experiment with psychedelic rock and indie pop.
“I would love to do a project with Tyler [The Creator],” he said. “He’s the reason I made this album. He’s the one who told me to do it, just go for it. He’s so confident and I have so much respect for him because he takes me seriously, and he always has.”
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Yachty also revealed he played the project for Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, Drake, Cardi B, Kid Cudi, A$AP Rocky and Post Malone before dropping it, and was “boosted” by their positive reactions.
Additionally, he called the album a true reflection of himself and his musical influences, which range from Bon Iver and Pink Floyd to Black Sabbath and James Brown.
“I did do things that may have led people to the assumptions that I was a mumble rapper or a SoundCloud kid or I don’t appreciate the history of Hip Hop,” he admitted. “But to be honest, I’ve always been so much more than just Hip Hop.”
Meanwhile, Lil Boat isn’t the only rapper whose feathers Akademiks has ruffled lately. In May, Fat Joe took issue with the podcaster asking Lil Durk if Gunna “told” on Young Thug by taking a plea deal in the YSL RICO case — a loaded question he felt instigated beef between the pair.
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“He made him answer what he thought about Gunna — that’s the oldest trick in the book in Hip Hop journalism,” Joey Crack vented on Instagram Live. “Now, Durk jumps out and says, ‘No, I’m not.’ Now these two people don’t like each other for the rest of their life.
“But this is the type of entrapment, East-Coast West Coast beef, VIBE magazine, The Source magazine shit they been doing. Here, we stay in the light. We want to hear positive things about everybody.”
