On Oct. 4, 2025, Yung Lean kicked off his FOREVER YUNG tour in Detroit at the Russell Industrial Center. The Swedish born artist began as a cloud/emo rapper, but as time has gone on, he has bent the genres he partakes in heavily. With his different albums, monikers and groups, labeling him as “just a cloud rapper” or just whatever have you is a disservice to the art. His new album that the tour is campaigning dips into Alt Rock, Pop, Rap and Electronic just within that project alone. The sound is something that can only be understood from hearing him and hearing that sound translated live was something I was eager to do.
Yung Lean has been an artist I have appreciated for many years, especially in the peak of quarantine. His album Starz, which was released in May 2020 truly captivated me, so that coupled with songs like “Agony” were strangely comforting in strange times. My closest friends share a similar music taste to mine and despite not being as big of fans of Lean, were eager to tag along to a show of his. Hearing that it was at the Russell was another great aspect to me. Seeing how cool people like JPEGMAFIA and Danny Brown use that venue made me excited to see how Yung Lean could use it. The abandoned factory turned commercial complex focusing on the arts is such a fun destination to witness a performance in.
We arrived at the concrete palace that is the Russell about an hour before the doors opened. We were surprised to find the line curving around the parking lot, but thankfully the Taqueria El Rey taco truck parked there kept us company with some good eats. In the line, we met a guy who drove all the way from Colorado for the show, showing that the love for Lean is spread very far. After about an hour of waiting, we were let in and the merch line immediately piled up. The dark industrial interior of the Russell was lit up by various colored lights, covering the crowd as we waited for the opener Niontay to begin.
While I was slightly familiar with Niontay from his collaborations with other rappers like MIKE and El Cousteau, I had never listened to his solo work. I was unsure of what his set would look like, but I always make sure to give an opener a chance. If they are up there giving it their all, attempting to prove themselves to an audience that most likely doesn’t know them, I don’t see a reason why not to give them your undivided attention and energy. And thankfully, when he came out swinging with a good flow and some hard-ass beats, I was hooked. He played a solid half-hour set full of energy, bringing out another rapper who stayed on stage with his DJ as well as another confidant of Niontay, all of which seemed to contribute to the rapper’s great energy and joy as he performed.
After Niontay’s set, the wait between sets began to weigh on me and my friends. When it reached nearly an hour, one of them was close to swearing Lean off forever. This weariness and dismay immediately faded when the lights dimmed, and bizarre imagery began to be projected paired with cinematic orchestral music. Yung Lean then rode the wave of that grand music onto the stage, wearing a conductor’s outfit wear he started rapping his song “Smirnoff Ice.” Throughout the next track and the lead single of the album, “Forever Yung,” silhouettes of a band were projected. Right at the climax of the song, the curtain dropped revealing an entire rock band dressed in suits. Following this reveal he played one of my favorite songs of his, the electronic pop banger “Bliss” that featured FKA twigs. The surprise of the live instrumentation and how three songs into the setlist already hit so hard, I knew this show was going to deliver something special. The next flurry of songs only continued to prove this. The next absolute standout was “Horses”, a grandiose and passionate song about living free. This live version really put the band to use and was the first emotional gut punch of the evening. After that experience, “End of Act One” flashed on the screen with more distinct imagery. Making a framing device for a concert like that struck me as such an interesting artistic choice that most artists wouldn’t even care to go out of their way to do.
The second act was filled with his classics and more upbeat songs, including “Kyoto” and “ghosttown.” The latter featured Travis Scott at a time when he was less famous than Lean, if you can believe it. When he got to “Yoshi City,” my friends and I immediately moved into the mosh pit, as it is a song my friend Giovanni had been waiting the whole show to hear. Throughout the whole show, the crowd proved to be huge fans, and that wonderful energy followed into the pit. Being able to dance around with my best friends and die-hard fans of the music was truly a highlight of the night.
Act three was the shortest, but showed itself to be a fitting climax to the story Lean has been bringing us through. It opened with a grand rendition of his song, “Never Again,” a painful farewell he released under his other moniker, jonatan leandoer96. I was glad to hear this played despite it being one of his more niche tracks. Now, the closer of this act was a song I knew was coming, but I could not prepare myself for, the second gut punch, “Agony.” This song is one very near and dear to my heart. Hearing it at such a scale live at such a different time in my life from when I frequented it in my headphones, meant so much to me. The simple lyrics that paint a great picture of Lean’s pain speak volumes. The juxtaposition of lyrics of this and the previously played “Horses” also show how Lean’s perspective has changed. “Watching horses in the field, the dragon rests in agony.” to “Wish that I could stay, but I gotta leave. Baby, you know that a wild horse gotta run free.”
He closed the show off with an encore including his classic “Ginseng Strip 2002” and a cover of The Stooges “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” the latter of which I had never heard before but has since become a song that’s been stuck in my head. That’s the power of Lean. The encore was a great way to stick the landing after what was such a fantastic show. I can truly appreciate how grand Lean was able to make such a smaller venue feel. I have seen artists in significantly larger venues give not even an ounce of the style and substance that Lean provided here. An extremely personal, fun night out and it makes me yearn to see him again.
