A sweeping concept album that features a slate of international collaborators, Love Me Later takes Yitai Wang on a journey through time and emotions. “It might start out feeling a little depressed,” the rapper tells Apple Music. “Then there’s a look back at past experiences, with flexes that build into something confident. By ‘Where to go’, I’m no longer worried about what might happen. Part 2 [of the album] mainly looks towards the future.” Written over the course of two years and recorded in Los Angeles, the album rewards repeated listens—and in fact, its two halves were released a week apart. “There’s quite a bit of Sichuanese and lots of hidden messages, so listeners need time to digest it before it can become part of the discourse,” Wang says. “I want to give fans their own space. I feel like explaining things too directly isn’t romantic.” Showcasing the confidence of Part 1 are “Do It Like This”, which features fellow Chengdu rapper Masiwei, and “Rich Forever”, a collaboration with two American rappers. “Rich The Kid was in China for a few shows last year,” Wang says. “We got together to mess around in the recording studio. It was a really unplanned thing.” They used a trap beat from Grammy-winning producer Myles William, who supplied many of the beats on the album. When Wang was in LA, William introduced him to Armani White, who had also taken a shine to the beat. “I said, ‘Let’s bring him in and add another verse.’ So he came in and we had a good time in the studio trading lines. That’s how the song came to be.” The album’s roster of creative partners includes rappers AIR and AThree, as well as Maroon 5 keyboardist PJ Morton, who helped fashion the melodic “燕南飞” [“Swallows Fly South”]. “I’m not just a straight-up rapper. I also like slower, more musical stuff,” Wang says. “So I really enjoyed this little cross-genre collab.” His penchant for melody also turns up on “眼前的歌” [“The Song Before My Eyes”], a delicate cut about falling in love again, written for his wife, and “大桥” [“Bridge”], whose chorus wouldn’t be out of place on a classic Mandopop ballad. Wang follows his musical instincts into Jersey club (the euphoric “匕首” [“Dagger”]) and “Big Little Flex”, a collab with husband-and-wife team Tobe and Fat Nwigwe. And “战壕” ["Trench”], a drill track featuring Asen that reifies a hip-hop battle (“The stage is a trench God made/The mic is my rocket launcher”), is another case of Wang leading with his ears. “It’s got a drill beat but it’s not as hardcore as most drill songs,” he says. “So I’m trying out different styles—the important thing is that I like what I’m doing.” Underscoring that desire is album closer “不称职的天才” [“Incompetent Genius”], a tuneful mission statement that looks beyond worldly acclaim to something more meaningful and transcendent.