UrbanUpdate

When it comes to grooming, Lil Yachty is probably best known for his signature beaded braids, but on a recent Friday afternoon, it was tough to look away from his nails: tiger stripes on his fingers and royal blue swirls on his toes. The 23-year-old rapper has been getting clear-polish manicures for years, but with the recent launch of his own brand, Crete, he’s in the nail polish business—and looked like it.

We met at his new five-bedroom house on a lake outside Atlanta, and he sauntered past a crystal acrylic piano, a life-size statue of Yoda, and a very cute but not completely house-trained dog named Carti to situate himself on a custom green, yellow, and purple Togo sofa. It was 3 p.m., and he had been awake for only about an hour—but that’s not to say he didn’t have a packed day planned. He had a Zoom in an hour. At 5 p.m., he was supposed to be an hour away, at Icebox, the jewelry store that’s a favorite of the city’s top music industry talent—Migos, Lil Baby—to get his sister a watch as a high school graduation gift. That ceremony was to begin at 7. At some point among all of this, he was meant to have a design meeting about the two neighboring lake houses he bought last year on impulse. “I don’t know what I want sometimes. I just kind of live,” he said, noting that he wasn’t halfway through his last lease before he decided to move into the current spot. “When I got [this house], I was like, Well, my neighbors are too close—I want that house too. So that’s where my friends live.”

He says it was a similar sort of whim, at around the same time, that made him think about getting into the world of beauty and grooming, with Crete. And so far, his instincts seem to be accurate: The brand launched the last week of May, and the line sold out before the end of the day. There’s nothing Greek about it—it’s a play on the word concrete, which Yachty often uses to refer to his team. (“The whole concrete thing is basically being solid,” he says.) Crete launched online with three shades—black, white, and gray (or, rather, to extend the construction theme, “asphalt,” “concrete,” and “sheetrock”). It’s aimed at everyone, including guys new to wearing nail polish, and rather than packaged in standard bottles with brushes, it comes as an easy-to-use pen that dispenses small doses of quick-drying polish with a simple click.

Crete Asphalt nail paint$14

Crete

Lil Yachty says his own experience with nail polish began when A$AP Rocky inspired him to start getting professional buffs and clear polish. “I started doing it about three or four years ago,” he said. “I got compliments instantly. I felt clean. My nails weren’t dirty and nasty. I felt more mature.” During the pandemic, he expanded his horizons, after a nail tech named Rosa Yee DM’d him a manicure offer. Their first collaboration featured clear polish with black designs: the words LIVE FAST on Yachty’s thumbs, an 8 ball, a cross, the year Yachty was born (’97), and the word TOES spread across four of his toenails. It got 1.6 million likes on TikTok.

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Since then, their designs have gotten more ambitious and colorful. For Christmas, the rapper’s fingernails had a holiday theme: Santa Claus, a reindeer, the Grinch. These days, Yee sends him ideas ahead of time, and pays him a visit every other Sunday. (Crete is also selling nail stickers based on the viral TikTok designs.)

Yachty says if it were up to him, he would’ve launched Crete with bolder colors, but the initial release was meant to be as welcoming as possible for people who are new to the nail polish program. “Let’s just say, I felt as if a lot of men may have wanted to do it—but it felt too feminine,” he said. But it seems those worries were short-lived: A rapper with a nail polish line feels perfectly natural in 2021, and in about a month, he will release a trio of colors called “Heatwave”: bright red, orange, and yellow.

Courtesy of CreteRead MoreHere's How (and Why) to Paint Your Nails Right Now 

Nail polish on men is the new wave—just ask Harry Styles and A$AP Rocky. Here's how to do it right. 

By Avidan Grossman

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