The music is just as timeless as its ethos. Opening track “Another Sketch” boasts a glistening sonic makeup, rife with jumpy synths that sound like what sunlight on undulating river water looks like. The vocals are steeped in a certain knowing bliss, heavy, but with the wistful airiness of a friendly clairvoyant in a dystopian coming-of-age film. “Who isn’t to blame?” he flits lightly over the beat, his voice in equal part commanding and modest. The question, one especially pertinent following a heavy cultural yesterday continually seeping into the present, is a fitting marker of Silva’s detached vision — why go into tomorrow still worrying about who’s at fault for the mishaps of a day ago? Lil Silva is lurching towards whatever's next. And both for his career, and the many characters, experiences, and lessons that informed its decade-long ascent, the slate is freshly wiped.
“No regret man,” he tells me of the project’s making. “Ten years of influences… ten years in the making… what is time, anyway?”
Time isn’t much of a factor for Lil Silva in general, and it’s a rule that doesn’t hesitate to carry over when he’s in the studio. A few years ago, Mick Ronson consulted him for a session with Lady Gaga. Upon being told to play the best thing he was working on, Silva got something going, and when Gaga entered the room, she was in hysterics over how much she enjoyed it. “Oh my God, you made this?” he says, doing his best impression of the singer. “The next six, seven hours into the morning, we were working on that song.” He lets off the same sheepishly-humble chuckle from before. “Yeah man, I don’t really boast that,” he says, with a laugh that screams you got me. “I don’t talk about it. But yes, there’s a lot of cool people I’ve worked with.”
But as much as the cast of “cool people” he’s worked with over the years — Adele, Serpentwithfeet, Banks, etc — may appeal to the clout-chasing brand of hip-hop networking the internet increasingly champions, collaboration for him is more about getting the sound he wants out, and less about basking in the fame that comes with it. “I don’t think music needs to be focused on that,” he says. “You’re just making the best music possible. I feel that having a collaborator on any of this is just a blessing. Like, I want to make this sound the best it can sound, and I fuck with your shit.”
Yesterday is Heavy features collaborations with Little Dragon, Charlotte Day Wilson, BADBADNOTGOOD, Sampha, Skiifall, and more. Whether he’s curating their voices, crooning with his own, hiding in the crevices, or gracing center-stage, every voice included is singing from the future — and it's a future we're all invited to.