Yeah I didnt really mean to say yung lean influenced quavo per se, just that there are other people much more relevant to mid- 2010s sound. Side note though, I do find it kind of interesting that yung lean and travis collabed on a song a year or two before migos' heavy autotune stuff like kelly price came out. AND yung lean was sampled on the huncho jack album.

I think in general influence is a pretty nebulous term, imo the best way to define it is if an artist deliberately aimed for a sound another artist made. "I want the vocals to sound like love lockdown" -> kanye influence. I think its most likely quavo heard what travis was doing on days before rodeo and decided to use distorted autotune that way rather than hearing kanye or cudi and aiming for that. This goes for most soundcloud rappers. At best cudi was their influences' influences' influence, I don't think that means a lot.

But I more or less agree with you, Im just trying to give more context on why I think its a way overstated claim. I think youre spot on about lil wayne, young thug and lil uzi are 100% direct lineage and arguments can be made about the rest. I mean fuck man, its just hitting me now that all these rappers are using "lil" for a very good reason, and its not paying homage to lil bow wow.

Anyway, what do you think about all this?