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Hip-Hop Lives Here
Lil Yachty has opened up about his past relationship with Mariah The Scientist, admitting that he wasn’t the best boyfriend.
Sitting down for an interview with Shannon Sharpe on his Club Shay Shay podcast, the Atlanta rapper reflected on dating Mariah when they were both college students, although it appeared to be an uncomfortable topic for him.
“I was a shit person to her. She was really great, so great. So I get it. She was a great person, though, man,” he said while visibly squirming in his seat.
Addressing comments she made in a recent interview with Yung Miami, Yachty added: “That’s the first time she ever spoke on us, ever, publicly. I honestly think she was pretty respectful. She didn’t shit on me, you know? I know what you’re talking about, but I brought it upon myself. She ain’t tell no lies.”
Asked by Sharpe if he wanted to apologize to Mariah, Lil Boat was noncommittal: “Our relationship is such a long span, you know? Since high school, so it’s long and blurry. YOLO, bro. Shout out to her. Tons of love. And I respect her.”
Last year, Mariah The Scientst, who is currently in a relationship with Young Thug, revealed that she and Lil Yachty were romantically involved before either of them were famous.
She said on Yung Miami’s Caresha Please podcast: “I met him in high school, though by the time I got to college we started dating a little bit or whatever, and I felt his career was taking off and he had all these things. I didn’t know what to do, like, or what I could give him, ’cause I was just a broke college student.”
Mariah also revealed that she even wrote multiple songs dedicated to the future rap star: “So I thought, ‘Well, he likes music, I like music, let me make him a song.’ And so that’s what I did, I made him two different songs and I put them on the iPod and I gifted it to him. I signed the back, it was real cute.”
Yachty’s response to the romantic gesture, however, was less than positive.
“He told me he did not want to listen to it because he didn’t want to shit on me,” she recalled. “At the time, I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt.
“Like, you make music so you feel like maybe this is stepping on your toes, people around you be trying to do shit like that, and maybe you felt like I was trying to infringe on that area of your life.”
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Ezra Collective have unveiled details of their fourth studio album, ‘Here Because Of Hope’, alongside a brand new single featuring Pa Salieu. Listen to ‘Only Love’ below.
The London jazz outfit will release the follow up to 2024’s ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’ on September 18 through Partisan. Pre-orders and pre-saves are available now.
According to a press release, the forthcoming 17 track collection is described as an “expansive, emotional and deeply rhythmic” body of work. The album includes spoken word passages from BAFTA-winning actor Letitia Wright and guest appearances from Lila Iké, Leona Lewis and Libianca.
With ‘Here Because Of Hope’, Ezra Collective continue to explore new creative territory while staying connected to the sense of community, spirituality and shared energy that has been central to the band since the beginning.
The uplifting new single ‘Only Love’ marks the first collaboration between the group and Pa Salieu, with both artists drawing from themes of diasporic identity, rhythm and storytelling throughout their work.
The track is built around grooves inspired by West African music, blending rich horn arrangements with deeply personal lyrics from Salieu. Together, the song finds strength and beauty in themes of perseverance, joy and survival.
Bandleader Femi Koleoso explained: “Pa Salieu has been a musician that we have long admired in Ezra Collective. Not just because of his incredible lyricism and storytelling but also his ability to weave in his Gambian heritage and roots into such a distinctly UK sound.
“In 2024, we had the beautiful moment playing at Wembley Arena, looking out into the crowd and seeing Pa Salieu dancing and partying with his friends and in that moment, I had the very thought we need to make a song together for this kind of setting.
“I spent some time studying West African music, studying Gambian music, and let that influence the bassline of this track and the drumbeat.”
He continued: “We linked up with Pa in Wood Green and immediately his stories started to flow. He came with a bunch of lyrics that he had from a really hard time he went through, but in those lyrics were so many stories of pain but also beauty, joy and love, and we were trying to find that beautiful place in the middle of those two things, and that’s how we came about this song.”
Speaking about the album as a whole, Ezra Collective described ‘Here Because Of Hope’ as something deeply meaningful and uplifting.
“It feels like our first records were really Ezra Collective as children; this one really feels like Ezra Collective as adults,” they explained.
“There’s been so many moments of joy, so many moments of excitement, but at the same time, it’s impossible not to look at the world and feel deep pain and sadness, and we were really determined to write an album that still sees the prominent importance and final destination being joy, but also recognises the pain and the momentary difficulties that people are facing.
They added: “This album is the journey from that pain to joy, and the connective word in the middle is hope. We hope that this album makes people dance, we hope it makes people cry. There are stories woven into every single fabric of the record, and those stories [are] most eloquently put by five adults that met as children.”
The tracklist for Ezra Collective’s ‘Here Because Of Hope’ is:
Ezra Collective and Salieu debuted ‘Only Love’ live while headlining the New Music Stage at Radio 1’s Big Weekend last week. The band will spend much of the summer performing at festivals across the UK and Europe, including an appearance at Lost Village in Lincolnshire.
The Mercury Prize and BRIT Award-winning group also featured on this year’s star-studded ‘Help(2)’ charity album in support of War Child.
Speaking with NME at last year’s BRIT Awards, where the group won Group Of The Year, Koleoso reflected on the lasting impact of inspiring young people through music. “If someone is here because Ezra Collective went into their school and inspired them, then we will last forever. So will they, if they do the same. That is the way we think about everything.”
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