REVIEW: Psycho YP – Euphoria

While his earlier projects were heavily rooted in Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop subgenres like Trap and Emo, he started experimenting with Afro-pop after YPSZN. The same continued into YPSZN2, YP and Azanti – which also experimented with R&B as well as Welcome To The Ville with Apex Village.

With ‘YP and Azanti,’ he also made his first ‘OG move,’ by finding and creating with his 16 year-old protege, who doesn’t even live in Nigeria. With a master’s degree and possibly a Ph.D on the way as he intimates on ‘In Peace,’ YP also has brains, as he navigates the tricky, rocky and uncertain roads of Nigerian music.

Released on August 28, 2021, his latest project, Euphoria, had been completed by Q1 2020. He was just waiting for the perfect time to drop it.

Speaking with Lootlove on Africa Now on Apple Music, YP says, “’Euphoria,’ I think I started recording this before lockdown, so before COVID hit, I started recording some of these songs, and then the lockdown came and I was in England and I wasn’t going to uni, I was just with some of my friends in an apartment and all I was really doing was making music, literally. I was just putting everything into these tracks.”

The last time he visited Pulse Nigeria in March 2021, he told this writer that he has completed his next two or three projects. Looking at him was his proud sister and manager, the spectacular Cindy Ihua.

On this project, YP jettisons his experiments with Afro-pop and flirtations with R&B. Instead, he goes for gritty Hip-Hop records via some grimy, hardcore Drill and Trap beats. Some of its records, like ‘Euphoria,’ are also heavy experimental, as they meander between Afro-pop snares and Drill templates.

His incredible beats also represents what YP, a Gen Z rapper consumes. In particular, ‘+234 (Daily Paper,’ underlines how YP is influenced by the UK, where he schooled. The Grime record sounds like Kano‘s ‘Class of Deja’ or something that D Double E could have made.

A record like ‘Euphoria’ is a continuation of ‘New Bag,’ off his project with Azanti. Earlier in his career, sounds like that can be traced to ‘Heartless’ featuring Santi, off ‘YPSZN,’ which he made while still a university student in the UK. To go with his grimy tendencies and his impeccably scary beat selections, YP’s topics also have teeth. He bites and nobody is safe from his wrath.

This is underlined by ‘Smoke For Free,’ in which he raps, “If you want war with the boy, better know I’m dishing out smoke for free…”

On ‘Industry N****s,’ he takes aim at the fickle ‘promise and fail’ tendencies of the infamous ‘industry people’ in Nigerian music. As if that wasn’t enough, he also takes aim at some of his listeners. He sing-raps, “All of these b*tches they want clout, all off the n*ggas they got curfew…”

Did someone say yikes? Yes, I thought I heard that right. His comments allude to the age of some of his listeners, which also underlines their limited freedom. Alongside another record like ‘In Peace,’ on which he delivers a riposte at his online critics, calling one of them a “broke n*gga,” it feels like YP is tired of or frustrated by something.

His headspace, as a young man in the UK while he made this EP is also apparent. On ‘Industry N****s,’ he claps down on Lagos n*ggas, projecting a side that feels let down. In 2018 he was more optimistic about Lagos – at least people around him were.

When he hopped on ‘Louis V’ off ‘YPSZN‘ he rapped that, “Next year, we gon show up in Gidi [Lagos] and turn some n*ggas off the fucking cards…”

On ‘Euphoria,’ he also mentions Abuja, his abode, only in passing. Chief of which was on ‘Smoke 4 Free,’ where it relates with a linkup with a girl.

With a project that’s specifically created to be non-conformist towards the standards of Nigerian pop music, it feels like YP is acting out and creating by his own rules. It also feels like he’s tired of ‘waiting’ for a moment. After getting a Headies nod for Best Rap Album in 2020, some of his sentiments are understandable.

As he repeatedly yearned on ‘Target’ alongside South African singer, J Molley, “I just wanna live like an artist…”

YP might not be a Nigerian superstar yet, but he has earned the respect of his peers across the continent. This has also made him a highly sought-after talent in African music, for distros/label services companies and even major labels. That’s why he can floss about only speaking ‘Guapene$e,’ a metaphor for the money he has made over the past year.

On the negative side, as YP’s vocabulary and ability to bar himself out keeps improving at an alarming rate, his flow scheme has gotten a little casual and ‘familiar.’ On future projects, it would be nice to see YP expand his flow scheme a little bit more. That seems like the next frontier in a career that is moving at great pace.

On a tracklist side, ‘Smoke For Free’ should have also come within the opening few tracks of this EP. It would have been a perfect manifesto for ‘Euphoria.’

In the end, ‘Euphoria’ seems to underline Psycho YP’s current state of mind; a bridge between the exuberant results of making money, the satisfaction that comes with some of his dreams getting achieved and the duality of a growing ego.

‘Euphoria,’ ‘Big Moves’ and ‘Smoke 4 Free’ are the best songs on the album.

Themes and Delivery: 1.5/2

Enjoyability and Satisfaction: 1.7/2