"The 24-year-old Queens rapper spent the 10 hours before her sixth LP dropped walking on a giant self-propelled wheel on view in a gallery in Lower Manhattan, staring ahead and staying quiet as the record played on a loop. The exhibit streamed live on Twitch; inside the gallery, fellow streamers and a smattering of real fans with signs and bouquets watched, too."
"Gates has said the wheel performance was about "unavoidable responsibility" and being "the curator of the circumstance I'm faced with." But the multi-camera setup and entry sign denoting UMG's copyright over the whole exhibit recalled her description of the glass box project: that it was "about how I'm just, like, a product now," how she "started to feel like a deliverable." Debating the line between art and marketing here is beside the point; everyone on a major is a content creator now."
Lexa Gates enacted a ten-hour gallery wheel performance in Lower Manhattan that streamed on Twitch as her sixth LP played on loop, attended by streamers and fans. Earlier promotion included a glass-box stunt in Union Square without food or water. The gallery piece framed themes of unavoidable responsibility and curatorial control while corporate signage and multi-camera setups signaled productization. I Am expands Gates' sample-driven hip-hop soul with major-label access to lush archives and clearer production. The record presents sharp bars and soulful timbre but often feels impersonal and friction-free, attempting to balance manifesto ambitions with market polish and resulting in calculated monotony.
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