Steve Lacy’s ‘Oh Yeah?’ lands as a restless pop statement
Rolling Stone says Steve Lacy’s new album swerves through breakbeats, ballads and trip-hop, with SZA, Erykah Badu and Cecile Believe along for the ride.
By Georgia Hale · Staff Writer
3 min read
Steve Lacy’s new album, Oh Yeah?, has arrived with a crowded passport: breakbeats, guitar confessionals, murky trip-hop textures and jokes that Rolling Stone critic Jeff Ihaza says can veer from raw to absurd.
In a review published July 16, 2026, Ihaza argues that the record makes Lacy’s strongest case yet as a defining pop auteur of his generation. The album follows the Grammy-winning Gemini Rights, which Rolling Stone describes as Lacy’s earlier proof that he could handle big-pop scale and billion-stream songs.
The rollout began last summer with “Nice Shoes,” which Rolling Stone says appeared alongside Lacy’s cover story and served as an early signal that Oh Yeah? would not sit still. Ihaza writes that the song’s rapid breakbeat initially surprised fans, before Lacy’s familiar guitar work and soft vocal delivery pointed toward a wider mix of sounds.
A guest list built for romantic chaos
SZA joins Lacy on “Is it cool,” a track Rolling Stone frames as a meeting of two artists skilled at emotionally messy hooks. Ihaza highlights Lacy’s line, “You ain’t gotta trust me to love me, baby,” as one delivered with striking sincerity.
The song runs into “the feeling,” identified by Rolling Stone as the album’s first official single. Ihaza describes it as a ballad driven by a patient bass line, a catchy melody and Lacy’s repeated question, “Am I your baby?”
Erykah Badu appears on “Pure Color,” which Rolling Stone says shifts the record into territory recalling Portishead. Ihaza calls the track slow, dubby and bass-heavy, with Badu’s rhythmic vocals set against Lacy’s hushed performance.
Another guest, Cecile Believe, turns up on “lovesexdrugbomb.” Rolling Stone notes that Lacy praised her during his cover story interview, and Ihaza says her hook gives the song an R&B polish while Lacy’s guitar lifts the mood.
Lyrics that refuse to behave
Ihaza says the album is tied together partly by Lacy’s blunt, off-kilter writing. On “Show You Me,” Lacy sings, “Been a while since I had some coochie stuck in my teeth,” a line Rolling Stone cites as an example of how his humor can clash with, and then somehow fit inside, a sweet chorus.
The review says Oh Yeah? keeps returning to whether love can last. Ihaza also writes that Lacy’s queer identity, his relationship to his late father and his Filipino heritage surface naturally across the record.
The album closes with two key turns. “Nice Shoes / In Your World” expands last year’s teaser into a nine-minute piece, according to Rolling Stone, with synths, breakbeats, a reflective second half and a spoken-word outro in which Lacy thanks former lovers before saying, “I gotta get the fuck outta here, y’all.”
Rolling Stone says the final track, “Bebe,” acts as a psych-rock postscript that complicates the emotional release before it. For Ihaza, even the question mark in the title matters: Oh Yeah? sounds like certainty with doubt still buzzing underneath.
This story draws on original reporting from Rolling Stone.