Young Thug thread

he def uses his voice in a more interesting, developed way than 1) anyone else doing the new-ish rap vocal stylist thing 2) your standard rapper who, great flow and vocal character and all, is mostly just concerned with getting the words out with some performative emotion. who else is even a contender? cannot think of any other rapper who's iterated their way to such an expressive use of melody, texture, adlibs etc all integrated into such a holistic and singular approach.

@ soyrev this is the quote I disagreed with which is saying something difft than your regiment now

ooh just found out Hey I and Proud of Me are out in the public. the former was teased on his instagram a while ago and is super sweet :')
the latter is just super catchy, def up there with In This Game as one of the most poppy unreleased tracks from the past half year or so.

@d-40 ...but it's the same claim. your only response has been that other people do the "same things" individually (and very broadly speaking; employing melody, or adlibs for sotto voce emphasis, these are all hugely common things in rap by now), whereas my thug praise is all about how he brings those techniques together. the way he uses adlibs alone is super distinct from how gucci does it, but throw in melody, texture, rhythmic subdivisions, etc (my favorite bit from that garvey review was the insight that his adlibs are so developed we might as well think of them backing vocal parts unto themselves), and it's p clear he's operating in a completely different way. more sophisticated, and for me, way more affecting -- as much as i love something like "pillz," the original "freaky gurl," etc., and acknowledge gucci goes places young thug can't. (not unrelated, idk why you thought longneck was accusing you of "shitting on thug" with that q,,,)

this is all a lot of jerking off

"the insight that his adlibs are so developed"

Like look at yourselves, guys, ffs

God damn it motherfucker

Of course young thug does things other artists aren't doing. That's true of literally any good rap artist ever! I get that young thug gives you feels but ffs you are literally saying he's "more sophisticated" and all this other bullshit....

Also whinegarten and anyone else who thinks this is an argument about pedantic details can stfu

no u stfu

Oj da juiceman does things with ad libs no rapper has ever done. I cannot think of any other rapper who's iterated their way to such an expressive use of melody, texture, adlibs etc all integrated into such a holistic and singular approach.

no u stfu

― gr8080, Wednesday, May 27, 2015 12:50 PM (13 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

His opinion is bad and is shared by many ppl and I will say so on this board as we have since time immemorial about n00bs who limit their interest in rap to whatever has garnered the most media attention in a given moment.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUZ7JnldJik

Obsessing about Thug's ad lib game is just rock crit reletivism since he has 0 quotable lines.

one of the most popular and quoted rap lines of the last year was his unintelligible garble on the "lifestyle" hook -- pretty huge reason why that song was a hit

one of the most popular and quoted rap lines of the last year was his unintelligible garble on the "lifestyle" hook -- pretty huge reason why that song was a hit
--J0rdan S.

I wouldn't say it was "quoted"

you can see it how you want to see it

Is Young Thug a rapper a lot of people get "feels" from? I don't think I've ever reacted to any of his songs in the same way I have with, say, Kevin Gates. A ton of Gates' songs reveal who he is in depth that makes me feel like I know who he is in depth (at least relatively speaking compared to some other rappers). And of course ambiguity is the sort of game Thugger plays and a part of his appeal for me but I don't think it's conducive to the sort of experience I have with listening to something like Gates' Smiling Faces and Movie.

anyway whiney i would not go around bragging about not being able to interact or reckon with the way rap music is currently being made and consumed

I like Thugger, but I'm not gonna buy into these dumb reasons people justify their love for Thugger

the fact both Smiling Faces and Movie are equally powerful is just a testament to his versatility too. i love thugger and he is one of my favorite rappers at the moment but i feel where deej is coming from; there are a ton of great rappers and all of them have something unique (in general but also specifically to thugger) that makes them so good. i haven't read the whole convo between deej and soy so maybe forgive me if i ignored/misunderstood something either said.

Thug obv has quotable lines but whiney's overall point was otm

a tear softly rolls down whiney's cheek as he listens to fabolous make a joke about suge knight

lol

:]

hahaha jesus

For me, and I'm only a dilettante at best when it comes to hip-hop, I get the same unhinged but calculated vibe from Thugger that I used to from ODB. It's not so much wordplay as vocalplay - twisting words till they just become sounds etc.

Dog Latin what do you think of oj da juiceman

haha, i've no idea who that is, sorry

aye

ay

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9xVfisP-tr8

like a basketball player

"we here to stay" was definitely the least prescient line in that four-line freestyle

If that came out today, the p4k track review would be like

OJ's concillatory "aye" is at once hopeful, wistful, celebratory, a single blip where the yearning for freedom and euphoria are intertwined like a cartoon explosion, blown up on a gallery wall by Roy Lichtenstein. His subtle yet masterful inclusion of an extra article in the line "Freshman of the year like [a] basketball, player" stomps all over, say, Chief Keef's economy of words, adding extra syllables where, say, Neil Armstrong deleted them in "One small step for [a] man." And much like the moon landing, OJ's freestyle is a giant leap for mankind

written by who

S. Trawman

aye yi yi

lol i still enjoy "classic" oj da juiceman dont get me wrong

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jf3AR4eOs8U

love this

'beast' is a+ O_O

also shine blockers is def a noteworthy gucci verse! not for any weird crossover appeal, just because it's great and economical. 'on the block with a stupid watch boy you need to stop/when i stop everybody watch car don't have a top' is very memorable 2 me. folds/unfolds in such a cool way

hey stroller pussy is a memorable line too

i think young thug's obvious appeal despite a (relative) lack of quotable lines has a lot to do with what makes him so special. he's got lines if you listen closely, but point is he doesn't need him. guy's got quotable yawns ("just might be")

and jacques otm about that line (not like the crossover appeal is "weird" really, "shine blockas" is just a great song)

i think young thug's obvious appeal despite a (relative) lack of quotable lines has a lot to do with what makes him so special. he's got lines if you listen closely, but point is he doesn't need him. guy's got quotable /yawns/ ("just might be")
--soyrev

Well, yeah, we established this in the rolling doodlebob thread

I'm just saying that there's a difference between "wow, this dude really has a unique way with melody and texture that transcends the fact that he's not traditionally lyrical" (which I believe)

Vs, say

He treats the smallest compositional details with the care and craftsmanship of a chorus—everything here is a hook, from the ad-libs (a term that feels insufficient—Thug’s "ad-libs" are fully integrated into the song’s structure, to the point where we should probably just call them backing vocals) to the individual bars to the empty spaces. Barter 6 is not a world-conquering album; instead, it digs tunnels.

Like, I dunno, there's a disconnect in the way ppl write about Keef/Thugger/Migos and how I'm seeing them. I think their stuff is a nexus of awesomely sloppy punk rock expressionism (ie, this is my voice, this moment, what emerges instinctually, I'm gonna use the best take but sometimes the first take) and pop tools (ie, leaning towards the catchiest stuff that emerges). I think there's as much accident as craft here. Which is a great way to make music and clearly paying off

However a lot of the writing about these dudes treat them like Burt Bacharach and Big Daddy Kane, implying some deep auteuristic planning where a lot of this stuff just emerges organically like bands like Sonic Youth or Flaming Lips

Maybe I'm just seeing things with a little more skepticism because I'm old and jaded and tired. But if people are connecting with the unintelligible chorus of "Lifestyle" it seems to me like something as unpredictable and organic as the Vines that pop up around it -- I don't think we're at a point where you can anticipate or craft what six seconds of your song will be viral in the same way Max Martin can wag the dog on a Katy Perry song or Rakim can spit a dope line over where the drums pull out

Though I guess "Sausage" and"Coco" are trying to stuff as many of those moments in a song as possible, so that day is probably not far off?

Like if "Fuck Compton" came out today, Tim Dog might be praised more for the way his voice cracks on "dumb motherfuckas" than any of the actual rapping or content

@whiney idk i don't roll with the doodlebobs

but yeah i think that's incisive, about the intersection of instinct and a pop sense. i would add, in particular veneration of the thug, that he's appreciably refined his instincts over the past couple years to the point where what "just comes out" feels fully developed (for his best songs anyway). and even if it's still mostly off the cuff i actually would bet he directs more focus to the "adlibs" and details than his peers (i.e. not sitting down with a pen and pad but probably doing as many takes as he feels he needs to comp a great progression of asides and counterpoints; i get the sense he has a really strong sense of "when it's done," if only judging by how well and often the parts all come together). either way i don't think garvey's take rings hyperbolic.

not that it really matters. i'm equally impressed by the result, whether he carefully finesses every detail or he simply dashes the shit off in a take or two and lets the engineer sort it.

'traditionally lyrical' is not the only way to be 'lyrical'
young thug is lyrical because he makes good and deep jokes and metaphors
i think people are misconstruing 'lyrical' as 'narrative oriented', as in 'this is a song about this idea and all the lyrics are telling the story of this idea.' 'lyrics' happen on individual lines. young thug has more good individual lines than like 95% of rappers.

young thug's lyrics are more important to what makes him good than his vocalizations
young thug is not about 'melody and texture' (whatever 'texture' even means)
young thug is not about fucking yawns

young thug is a feeling

and i think that would be true of tim dog only if that had been a more developed part of his delivery. most critics today would probably just point out how his voice sounds like the chuck d cosplay it is.

also yeah i think these people are pretty aware of what the Vineable parts of their songs are by now, why wouldn't they be? don't think the most popular excerpt for any of those songs has ever been particularly surprising (and similarly, people in kanye's circle say he's always prescient about what parts of his songs are going to resonate broadest, i.e. why he insisted on keeping in "my damn croissants")