Miles Parks McCollum, known professionally as Lil Yachty, is an American rapper and singer. Miles Parks McCollum was born in Mableton, Georgia. In 2015, he adopted the nautical stage name "Yachty" and moved from his hometown of Atlanta to New York City to launch his career.

He stayed with a friend and networked with online street fashion personalities, while he built up his own Instagram following. Yachty first came to prominence in December 2015 when the SoundCloud version of his song "One Night" was used in a viral comedy video.

In February 2016, Yachty debuted as a model in Kanye West's Yeezy Season 3 fashion line at Madison Square Garden. Yachty's debut mixtape Lil Boat was released in March 2016. In April 2016, Yachty collaborated on the hit song "Broccoli", which peaked at number 5 on the Billboard Hot 100.

He featured on Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book mixtape, released in May 2016. On June 10, 2016 he announced he had signed a joint venture record deal with Quality Control Music, Capitol Records, and Motown Records.

Yachty released his second mixtape Summer Songs 2 in July 2016. In December 2016, he was featured on the hip hop single "iSpy" by Kyle. He was featured in Tee Grizzley's single "From the D to the A", released in March 2017.

On May 26, 2017, Lil Yachty released his debut studio album, Teenage Emotions. It features guest appearances from Migos, Diplo, Evander Griiim, Grace, Stefflon Don and YG, among others. Three promotion singles were released to co-incide with the track.

The album's first promotional single, "Harley", produced by K Swisha, was released on April 14, 2017. The second promotional single, "Bring It Back", produced by Free School, was released on May 4, 2017.

The third promotional single, "X Men", produced by 30 Roc and Tillie and featuring a guest appearance from American rapper Evander Griiim, was released on May 18, 2017. 2018 was a big year for Lil Yachty: he released two studio albums, Lil Boat 2 and Nuthin' 2 Prove, that year.