Where has YG the existentialist gone? 2016’s Still Brazy – the Los Angeles rapper’s second album, recorded in the wake of an attempt on his life – was a dazzling G-funk trip that hinted at a street soldier who’d caught his reflection in the chrome rims of his ride and begun to wonder what it was all for. Beneath the bassy sizzle of that album burned a paranoid introspection that made him a worthy contemporary of collaborator and fellow Compton native Kendrick Lamar.
This year’s Stay Dangerous, however, played it disappointingly safe. The soul-searching of Still Brazy and steely gangland reportage of his debut album, My Krazy Life, were out. Leaden beats, bedroom braggadocio and 2018’s weirdest Right Said Fred interpolation were in. Which might explain the half-empty venue that greets the MC as he bundles onstage in a Del Boy-ish brown coat and red trousers. “YG, don’t you got a daughter? Yeah, I’m a gangbangin’-ass dad,” he raps, slaloming over noirish, DJ Mustard-assisted synths on opener Suu Whoop. But it’s only with older favourites such as Twist My Fingaz, Why You Always Hatin’ and blistering breakout anthem My Nigga that the room truly erupts.
His Trump-eviscerating 2016 single FDT – introduced as a song about a “a fat, white, racist ass of a president fuckboi” – falls emphatically into the latter category, revving the crowd up before a welcome cameo from Ty Dolla $ign. Their rendition of the west coast crooner’s Ex is a triumph of gossamer guitars and 112-sampling grooves that helps end the night on a sleazy high, the MC wading into his adoring audience as it reaches its climax. YG the existentialist might be MIA, but YG the entertainer lives on.
