On Saturday (July 1), Lil Yachty gave a performance at Open’er Festival in Gdynia, Poland, which also saw fellow hip-hop acts Kendrick Lamar, Metro Boomin, Latto, Lil Nas X, and Destroy Lonely make appearances. What made Yachty’s set particularly notable, though, is that he actually put out a viral hit in 2022 named after Poland, which hit No. 40 on the Billboard Hot 100 and set off many different meme trends on TikTok.
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To commemorate this, Yachty performed “Poland” a whopping six different times at Open’er Festival, as he compiled each instance he did into a video posted to Instagram on Sunday (July 2). “LOVE 4 LYFE POLAND,” he wrote in the caption.
“Poland” was never meant to gain this much traction, though. As he’s noted in multiple different interviews, Yachty made the song ironically, after he was inspired by seeing a friend drink Poland Springs bottled water in the recording studio one day. However, employing his uniquely patented, high-pitched vocals for the Wockhardt cough syrup-inspired hook, a leaked version of the song blew up on TikTok and SoundCloud.
“The song was a joke,” Yachty said during a conversation with YouTuber ZIAS! shortly after the song’s release. “Like, I was just trolling.”
After noticing many youthful hip-hop fans took a liking to the unreleased version of the song, Yachty decided to give it an official release in October. Additionally, he would take a trip to Poland to shoot the song’s visuals alongside beloved hip-hop music video director Cole Bennett.
But, as “Poland” was ascending on the charts, Yachty was diligently crafting his next studio album Let’s Start Here, which he would eventually release in January. Pivoting from a trap-rap sound to a more alternative, psychedelic rock approach on the LP, Yachty feared “Poland” would make people take him less seriously as an artist.
“The only reason (‘Poland’) bothers me is because my next album is so fucking good,” Yachty said in an interview with the Full Send Podcast last fall. “I worked so hard on it. It’s this alternative album. It’s a full-fledged album that I worked really hard on… It’s funny, though. It just lets me know that I’m really better than everyone.”
Ultimately, though, Yachty was able to get the best of both worlds. On top of the entire music industry giving him props for his bold departure from rap with Let’s Start Here, he is still able to enjoy the success of “Poland,” evident in the numerous times he performed it in its namesake country.
Photo by Gary Miller/Getty Images
