For a Rap Song, Kodie Shane and Lil Yachty’s “Sad” Is Disarmingly Vulnerable
When Kodie Shane leapt off the screen during the video for Lil Yachty’s “All In,” the posse cut from his July mixtape Summer Songs 2, it wasn’t hard to see that she oozed charisma, personality, and fun. The 18-year-old swung her hair in tune with her bars, flashed the grill in her mouth, danced with carefree swagger—she’s the video’s highlight. What might have been difficult to estimate in that moment, however, was her capacity for the layered, mature “Sad,” a song about teenage emotions sung with the pathos and patience of an adult. “I just wanna be sad,” the wistfully bold hook goes, “I just wanna be sad for a minute.”
In contrast to the Technicolor fun of Lil Yachty and his Sailing Crew, of which Shane is a member, “Sad” is the first sign of a real emotional core to what the group is doing. As key members of a turning tide in hip-hop in 2016 (ultra young artists less burdened by rap history than their older peers), “Sad” establishes that the young guns can be reflective and genuinely moving. Yachty shows up to do his robot-alien warble on top of a beat that sounds like 808s and Heartbreak meets chiptune, the male voice on the other end of Shane’s pleading: “Why am I the one that’s always up in this position?” But this moment is about Shane, and “Sad” is her disarming statement of vulnerability and conviction.
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