After enduring weeks of online mockery for writing lyrics that betray, at the very least, a startling unfamiliarity with the names of musical instruments, Lil Yachty has released a statement. At issue are these lines from “Peek a Boo,” the lead single from his just-released album Teenage Emotions:
My new bitch yellow
She blow that dick like a cello
The cello is a stringed instrument, played either by plucking individual strings with one’s fingers or by scraping a bow across them. If Lil Yachty means what he says here, he seems to be referring to extraordinarily unpleasant techniques for “blow[ing] that dick.” Alternatively, Lil Yachty could have either an unconventional way of playing the cello or an unconventional understanding of what a cello is. It was the last of these possibilities that turned out to be true, as was revealed when Lil Yachty annotated the song’s lyrics on Genius with an explanation. While he was indeed mistaken as to the identity of the instrument that he referred to as the “cello,” he believes that blame lies not within but with those around him, who failed to prevent him from doing something stupid. Sarah Sahim posted Lil Yachty’s statement on Twitter:
Unfortunately, Lil Yachty is still somewhat confused: The “Squidward” he refers to is presumably Squidward Tentacles, a character on the children’s animated television program SpongeBob SquarePants. Mr. Tentacles is a self-pitying anthropomorphic octopus, but he doesn’t play the flute. Instead, he plays a clarinet named Clarry, as seen in this footage:
Apprised of his error, Lil Yachty took to Twitter to apologize for muddying the waters further:
It appears, then, that Lil Yachty meant to indicate that his new girlfriend “blow[s] that dick” in a fashion that reminds him of an anthropomorphic octopus playing the clarinet. It’s unclear whether he intended that to be a compliment.
Here is his complete statement:
OK, let’s stop for a second. Before you come at me, I’ma let you know. I’ma blame my A&R. Because he listened to that song many times and he allowed me to say that.. I guess for a second, I thought a cello was a woodwind instrument and it is not. And nobody ever said shit. Nobody ever pulled up a pic and said, “Hey, man. I don’t know if you know what this is, but it ain’t that.” I fucked up. I thought Squidward played the cello. He don’t. That’s a flute. I fucked up. But it do sound good.
