Billy Corgan and Yeat
photos by Mathieu Bredeau and Matt Ty

Billy Corgan reacts to hearing Yeat for the first time

Billy Corgan was interviewed by Zane Lowe on Apple Music this week, and on the show Zane had Billy listen and react to cult rapper Yeat. Zane called it an “astute and deep and empathetic response” in his caption on TikTok, and you can read it in full here:

I hear someone struggling with the dissociative world. I understand why people have ripped society apart. Whether it’s gender, the idea of, like, “What is a marriage?” and all this stuff. All those things need to be examined hard. I have no problem with people ripping stuff apart. So what I hear is an artist struggling how to put those ripped pieces back together. ‘Cause the human spirit at the end of the day wants to be standing on a black beach in New Zealand looking at the stars and saying, “I am whole, I am complete, and I know what the hell I am doing here.” So for a lot of people, ain’t no beach. Ain’t no stars. Ain’t no future. But they’re still feelin’ all the human impulses. “Who am I? Who’s gonna love me if I’m myself?” Or whatever. I’m not saying that’s this artist’s journey, but that’s what I hear. So what you hear is what on the surface sounds like an abuse of technology. The Auto-Tune ain’t workin’ right. The loops are actually out of time. But I don’t think that’s on purpose as in a, “Hey, let’s be clever and do this.” That’s a, “This is making me feel something that’s fresh, and it feels like right now.”

Billy is currently promoting Smashing Pumpkins’ rock opera triple-LP ATUM, out Friday (5/5) after being delayed. Yeat dropped a new LP, Aftërlyfe, back in February.

Pick up Yeat vinyl in the BV shop.

@zanelowe Playing Yeat for Billy Corgan and asking for his reaction elicited an astute and deep and empathetic response #yeat #smashingpumpkins #music #foryou ♬ Monëy so big – Yeat