Steve Lacy Releases Third Album After Four Years, Explores Deeper Themes in ‘Oh Yeah?’

Steve Lacy released his third album, Oh Yeah? after four years. The wait followed his 2022 breakthrough, Gemini Rights. This 10-track project marks a shift toward more personal lyrics and collaboration for the 28-year-old musician from Compton.

The record features Erykah Badu and SZA. Cecile Believe lends vocals to another track. The songs blend drum and bass, trip-hop, and analog synthesizer sounds.

"I think it wigged me out subconsciously," said Lacy, according to the Los Angeles Times. "I made an anthem. That song took me into spaces and territories that I never imagined, and so I think I felt ill-prepared."

His single, "Bad Habit," reached the top of the Hot 100 in 2022. It earned GRAMMY nominations for record and song of the year. The track from Gemini Rights won best progressive R&B album at the 2023 GRAMMYs.

Lacy received his first GRAMMY nomination at 17 as part of the band The Internet. He produced Kendrick Lamar's "Pride" from the Pulitzer-winning album D*mn using an iPhone. That cracked phone now sits in the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. "I've gotten a little bit more intense in all parts, I guess," said Lacy, according to The Guardian. "I just wanted the beat to hit and the chorus to be cute."

The opening lines of "Is It Cool?" took months to write. The track addresses Lacy's Filipino father's death when he was 10. "I've never said anything about being Filipino ever, or anything about my dad being dead," he said. "It's kind of this submission to darkness that comes with grieving and missing someone," Lacy told the Los Angeles Times. "I've grown up with lots of death. Cousins, my father, aunts, my grandmother."

He threw a listening party for the record at Lauren Halsey's Sister Dreamer sculpture garden near SoFi Stadium, which sits blocks from his native Compton. He recorded parts of the project in Paris while modeling for YSL.

The musician has reunited with The Internet. That's his group with Syd and Matt Martians. "It's a family. We all just love hanging out together," he said.