Young Thug thread

When is metro warrior coming out

also, will say i'm digging the album a lot more than my initial listens. i think i kind of just wanted some dun deal-produced stuff since pelican fly and friend of scotty were killer

srsly what the heck xp

i went back and listened to 1017 thug today. much of it is kind of unlistenable

like its 'weird' or 'interesting' but not good

@hanzi but not technically wrong! :)

@mister i had limited expectations, but some. (i'd read that this was a spacey, spacious record and was excited for what that might mean in the YT universe, but this isn't so spacey or spacious after all imo.) the notion of a talented young wayne acolyte being bold enough to (try to) name his record carter 6 was definitely intriguing, too.

so far i like the idea of thug more than the thug of the real, but i think everything about him on "about the money" is mindblowing. in a very different way, i now like "just might be" just as much.

@mister btw, creep game strong *_*

hmm i still think of it as pretty spacey/spacious

idk a lot of these beats are the same kinda dramatic trap brooders we've heard thousands of times in the past 4 years. young thug's prowess as a vocal stylist is present but not really explored as much as a "spacey" YT album makes me imagine. i guess i was thinking something more like lil wayne "single" beats paired with lil wayne "can't believe it:" verse, but pushed farther out/more to YT's strengths. (and i guess i was hoping as much based on the whole carter 6 / wayne obsession angle)

going to give it some more time though.

i don't think he really sounds like wayne at all at this point nor do i think he's trying to do anything really wayne-like

except maybe for the first song where he seems to be intentionally referencing him?

i feel like ppl are looking for more EXTREME young thug but that was always the aspect of thug's appeal which was least interesting to me

or at least, it was only interesting inasmuch as it was in tension w/ his pop appeal

Tour > B6 >>> the rest of thug's tapes

And 300 is not releasing this. That's why it's a "mixtape", right? Except you have to pay for it, lol.

Also agree that he's not really sounding like Wayne anymore.

well to be fair, the record was supposed to be called the Carter 6...but i didn't really mean it so literally (after all, Lil Wayne's rarely sounded like "Single" or "Can't Believe It"), just rough references for what kind of outness i was expecting. "amazing" and "knocked off" definitely have a magnetic weirdness about them, though -- very true that the album generally gets better as it goes along.

i think the album peaks around the middle but is good throughout, v consistent, no skippable tracks

feel like folks went from overvaluing illmatic-like consistency a decade ago to overvaluing BANGERS

Just revisited 1017 Thug and idk, while it's not as cohesive as B6, there are just so many strong moments on the tape for me (particularly the Picacho, Trigger Finger, Picture Baby stretch).

Is it Thugger's voice that makes it "unlistenable" for you deej? Also, is EXTREME young thug just when he flails his voice a lot?

I think his growth from 1017 Thug to Stoner-era and then Tha Tape Pt 1 is huge and one of the most immensely satisfying things to watch as a music fan in the past few years. Hearing his verse on Givenchy for the first time was one of those "he did it!" moments for me.

im overstating that its front to back 'unlistenable' but i def prefer new thug to old thug. there's a purposefulness to the way he deploys his vocal style now that i like more; the songwriting is also much tighter imo

a lot of the songs on 1017 thug bore me partway thru, it just becomes this exercise in headbanging energy that isn't really channelled in a particular direction

@soy only checked to see what you heard to see what you dug from young thug as to get a better understanding of how that affected your impression of B6 (as it did me).

@deej well, like, hip hop is he prime example of a genre where evaluating artists by the strength of full-lengths is maybe not the best way to go about things. and we're living in a different time now so it makes sense why things have shifted. Not disagreeing with you btw, I kind of just don't think the issues I have with B6 have to do, at least primarily, with the lack of bangers.

oh yeah i definitely agree with the "purposefulness" to his voice now, though i think the haphazard nature of his voice back then (and the fact it's still so melodic) is the main draw of it anyways.

i think a lot of ppl—not saying here nec. but if the shoe fits—feel like there's been a switcheroo and we thought we were getting this alt-weirdo and instead he's making, like, mainstream-appealing 'regular' formalist rap. but i think he was always moving in this direction

i used to hear the same thing about keef when ppl would argue he was this lil b like rapper and I'm like, ehh, he's more in the tradition of gucci/gotti/rocko than he is lil b (although i don't reject that influence entirely). But then i think a lot of ppl still look to rap for stuff that works against the grain rather than stuff that's exceptional w/in the genre's parameters (even as it subverts them)

not that i think yo gotti is some sort of ideal—god forbid—but i think trying to get artists to reject the formal tradition entirely not only tends to make for worse art but tends to detach artists from the hip hop audience

Oh yeah that's totally true; pretty sure "alien" was used to describe Young Thug in every other article/review written about him for a long while. Not to say he isn't unique but people were definitely pinning him as some "alt-weirdo". This was sort of why I was initially confused about the "unlistenable" comment because 1017 Thug doesn't sound different from a ton of other stuff going on aside from his frequently eccentric vocals.

And 300 is not releasing this. That's why it's a "mixtape", right? Except you have to pay for it, lol.

Also agree that he's not really sounding like Wayne anymore.

― longneck, Saturday, April 18, 2015 1:51 PM (48 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

who do you think released it? it says "© 2015 300 Entertainment" right on the album on iTunes and Spotify.

initially i found 1017 thug very listenable relative to 'came from nothing 3' which was in contrast even more brittle & cheery and extreme, mostly

except for 'foreign' which i actually like more than anything on either tape

i think a lot of ppl—not saying here nec. but if the shoe fits—feel like there's been a switcheroo and we thought we were getting this alt-weirdo and instead he's making, like, mainstream-appealing 'regular' formalist rap. but i think he was always moving in this direction

i don't think that was really the expectation. Tha Tour wasn't 'weirder' than B6 in any significant ways, it was just better, maybe more melodic. "Lifestyle" was his big pop hit that sounded like a pop hit, it just happened to have some crazy vocal tics and some lyrical tangents ('somethin' wrong with the pussy') that made it feel like he wasn't watering down what was unique about him.

yeah i'm not saying everyone who thinks this is a step down is saying that, but i think its representative of a portion of the disappointment

these were things i'd hear about the rich gang tape too

were young thug fans disappointed with tha tour? maybe i'm blinded by the random pockets of the internet i frequent but most people i talked with (both online and irl) seemed to think it was his best project.

who do you think released it? it says "© 2015 300 Entertainment" right on the album on iTunes and Spotify.

― some dude, Saturday, April 18, 2015 7:51 PM (20 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I didn't see those when it first dropped. Not saying they weren't there but there's something very odd about 300's handling of this. There was no official info on Carter 6 from them right up to the moment it dropped. And only then did they rush out to tell us about Hi-Tunes, as if they were distancing themselves from this product right away.

i'd say a lot of people credited Quan with it being as good as it was xp

I didn't see those when it first dropped. Not saying they weren't there but there's something very odd about 300's handling of this. There was no official info on Carter 6 from them right up to the moment it dropped. And only then did they rush out to tell us about Hi-Tunes, as if they were distancing themselves from this product right away.

― longneck, Saturday, April 18, 2015 2:19 PM (36 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i feel like you sometimes project too readily narratives that aren't really backed up by evidence

all signs point to '300' being a label that lets the artist make most of the creative decisions & they stick around for marketing & distribution purposes

switching carter 6 from album to mixtape at the last minute doesn't suggest confusion to me as much as a ploy to get as many people buying it as possible, then creating anticipation for the REAL real album

its like you get to roll out two real albums for the cost of one

i'd say a lot of people credited Quan with it being as good as it was xp

― deej loaf (D-40), Saturday, April 18, 2015 3:19 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

these people are wrong

flopson what do u think of this tape?

for whatever reason i feel v resistant to the talk of it being of substantially worse quality

completely love it

nice

maybe when ppl talk about being disappointed in the shift from 'take care' to 'nothing was the same' is how i feel about this relative to the rich gang tape

(which is to say that i didn't think NWTS was worse than TC as much as it was going for something different/more minimal)

the first track and last tracks are so amazing. kind of in the vein of 'givenchy' just thug like i could go forever letting his flow loose on a languorous beat. i hear people on how it's a bit meandering, but imo he is a genius of filling up space on slow tracks. the direction he's going with his flow is so exciting to me. too soon to say how this compares to tha tour but if this is the pre-album mixtape we may be in for a true classic

I didn't see those when it first dropped. Not saying they weren't there but there's something very odd about 300's handling of this. There was no official info on Carter 6 from them right up to the moment it dropped. And only then did they rush out to tell us about Hi-Tunes, as if they were distancing themselves from this product right away.

― longneck, Saturday, April 18, 2015 3:19 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this is 300's whole modus operandi, though. none of the projects they release are loudly announced as coming out on 300, there's mostly just the artist saying they're releasing a mixtape and the usual hype cycle for that, and then it's on retail with their name on it. you only kinda know that's exactly what's gonna happen if it's someone like Kevin Gates who's already done 3 or 4 projects like that.

gates isn't on 300 is he? he's atlantic/apg

oh right i guess i'm getting all these shady subsidiary situations confused. but like Migos, their last few mixtapes are on iTunes and Spotify via Quality Control/300.

only had a chance to listen to the 1st track from this but that shit is crazy

there's a purposefulness to the way he deploys his vocal style now that i like more; the songwriting is also much tighter imo

this is otm. i love old thug but re-listening now he is spraying all of his vocal ideas at the same time without too much focus

haven't been following the whole beef tbh but this title is a bad look

great cover tho!

I guess you're right about 300. It just feels weird to switch from "album" to "not this isn't the REAL album, that's coming LATER" within days of its release. Opposite of Drake. Everyone knew he was gonna drop a mixtape - it was made into an album for contractual reasons. Also, the idea that you have to pay for the mixtape violates my sense of what a mixtape should be I guess.

having spent two days with this imo it's great

sheesh

love all the hooks buried in "knocked off"