Ten years ago today, on October 21, 2016, NxWorries released Yes Lawd!, the debut album from singer, rapper and drummer Anderson .Paak and producer Knxwledge. It came out on Stones Throw Records, ran 19 tracks in under 49 minutes, and every beat on it came from Knxwledge. It even streamed a week early on Apple Music, on October 14, according to Wikipedia.
How We Got Here
NxWorries didn’t come out of nowhere. Their first song as a duo, “Suede,” hit Stones Throw’s SoundCloud on February 10, 2015, and the Link Up & Suede EP followed that December. Then .Paak’s solo album Malibu landed on January 15, 2016 and earned a Grammy nomination for Best Urban Contemporary Album. By the time Yes Lawd! arrived, .Paak was one of the hottest names in music, and fans wanted to hear him over raw, dusty Knxwledge loops.
Why It Mattered
Yes Lawd! sat right where neo-soul, beat-tape culture and rap meet. Knxwledge’s short, chopped-up production gave .Paak room to croon, rap, flirt and talk his talk, and the whole thing played like a smoky late-night session instead of a polished label rollout. It felt like the crate-digging, MPC-and-SP-404 world finally getting its own R&B star.
Standout Tracks
- “Suede”: the one that started it all and still the duo’s calling card.
- “Link Up”: smooth, confident and built for the car.
- “Lyk Dis”: released as a single on September 19, 2016.
- “Get Bigger / Do U Luv”: the final pre-release single, out October 6, 2016.
- “Another Time” and “Fkku”: both highlighted by critic Robert Christgau.
Charts and Reviews
The album debuted at No. 59 on the Billboard 200 and reached No. 3 on Billboard’s Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart. It also went No. 1 on New Zealand’s Heatseekers Albums chart. Critics loved it: it holds an 80 on Metacritic from 22 reviews, Pitchfork gave it an 8.2, and Rolling Stone ranked it the 15th best R&B album of 2016. No certifications are listed for it.
The Legacy
A remix album, Yes Lawd! Remixes, followed in 2017. Then fans waited almost eight years for round two. When Why Lawd? finally dropped on June 7, 2024, it won Best Progressive R&B Album at the 2025 Grammys, per Wikipedia. That win proved the blueprint from 2016 still holds up: a great voice, a great producer and no wasted motion.
Ten years later, where does Yes Lawd! rank for you: above Malibu or below it?
Dig through more anniversaries in The Archive: Classics, including our look back at Pharoahe Monch’s Internal Affairs.
Sources: Wikipedia: Yes Lawd! | Wikipedia: NxWorries | Wikipedia: Malibu | Wikipedia: 2016 in hip-hop
