Lil Yachty Fired Up The Fillmore Thursday Night.

photos by Vito Ingerto

Lil Yachty was lit at the Fillmore Minneapolis Thursday night. Pure fire. Yachty is originally from Georgia, but moved to NYC to pursue his inner flame of music. Recognition came soon after with the Soundcloud release of “One Night”. In 2016, he was named as a member of XXL’s 2016 Freshman Class. That was quite an accomplishment, as members of that class included Denzel Curry, 21 Savage, Kodak Black and Lil Uzi Vert. This led to collaborations with Chance The Rapper, Kyle and Tee Grizzley. The release of Teenage Emotions in 2017 has the spark that would light the fire of fame for Yachty, and there has been no turning back. Oh yeah, you’ve probably seen him in commercials with LeBron James and Carly Rea Jepson as well as being featured in campaigns by Nautica and Urban Outfitters. He brought all that talent and more to the Fillmore Thursday night.

The night was broken into three distinct segments. The first was an amazing, high energy set featuring a hip hop barrage by Stoop Lauren as well as the Concrete Family. Hailing from NYC, Stoop started the night amped. His staccato delivery and command of the stage had the Fillmore exploding. The Concrete Family featured the high energy hip hop artists Draft Day, DC2Trill, KarrahBooo and Camo31. Individually and together, the Concrete Family had the crowd in the palm of their hands. DC2Trill went into the crowd at one point, at the Fillmore bounced to the bass pounding out of the subs. All of the Concrete Family stuck around throughout the show and took selfies with all of the fans. Truly a high energy set.

Next up was Nick Hakim. Honestly, the set seemed out of place for this particular show. Hakim sang a series of slow jams, and while the band was obviously very talented, tight musicians, and Nicks vocals sweet and mellow, it just didn’t seem to hit with the crowd who were just brought to the edge of frenzied craziness by the Concrete Family. THe crowd took the break to fire up the vape pen and head to the merch booth. 

Yacchty’s set started right around 9:15. He kept up the 3 distinctive segment theme with his set. The show started with a light show that would have made The Grateful Dead jealous, trippy and psychedelic. I think it was Diane Gordon who stared “drive Me crazy” with a full band behind her. Yachty came out and drifted around the stage as the band played some filthy funky versions of “the ride” and “pRETTy”.  The first 5 tunes of the show were all from Yachty’s latest release “Let’s Start Here”. The album is a departure from his previous hip hop based music, showing the musical evolution Yachty is traveling. The first segment ended with a hella rocking version of the Phil Collins classic “In The Air Tonight’

Yachty returned to his hip hop bangers for the next segment on the show. “Get Dripped”, “Yacht Club” and “Flex Up” had the crowd at the Fillmore bouncing so hard that you could feel the floor move flexing. “Broccoli” and my personal favorite “Poland” were also big hits with the crowd. But one of the loudest responses of the evening came when Yachty broke out “Minnesota.” Again, you could literally feel the floor of the Fillmore flexing under your feet.

The final segment was a rock and roll powerset. It was amazing to see the crowd transition from bouncing to the rap beats to head banging to “We Saw The Sun” and “the BLACK seminole.”  Shout out to the guitsrist, I don’t know her name, but damn could she shred. 

Lil Yachty diverse set shows an artist who is in full command of their destiny, not locked into any musical genre.