Young Thug thread

so you're curving for effort?

...? no effort has nothing to do w/ it. i'm talking about distance travelled. and lil wayne's use of melodies in rap is not rlly like t-pain the way thug is like wayne

yeah idk if you can even really say he qualifies for this convo as weird as he's been in other ways, though "insanely vivid writing" would go under the separate rap-vocalist-vs.-rap-rapper category that got you rankled about my thug opinion in the first place: lyrics

how about bc he invented the adlib game u seem to credit thug with

it's insane and if you have any specific examples of these others guys doing what they do in such a total and sophisticated way i'd happily check/revisit them.

the entire careers of every artist mentioned do this in a total & sophisticated way.

i dont understand why you're so invested in contending that he's so many leagues ahead of the rest of rap & then all the characteristics you use to differentiate him are as true of many other current artists. obv i dont care / cant argue with "but he's just my personal favorite' but then why are u invested in establishing how no one is doing it in as 'total and sophisticated' of a manner as he is?

im actually quite looking forward to the moment when he starts to really stretch out in terms of emotional breadth—feel like both keef&future have gone quite a bit further in that department than he has, 'od' and 'numbers' kind of hint at it but are still fairly detached.

jfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUvy-n3c3Ro

http://imgur.com/a/3oMcc

the only album i have on my ipad is 'finally rich'. when i take a plane i listen to it on repeat & play sim city. never failed me so far.

as usual, thread is turning into rap top trumps

@d-40 idk why you insist i'm saying he's the originator of any of these techniques. "best" ≠ "first," "distance traveled" ≠ "best" (and imo if you want to talk emotional breadth w/ thug i'd think "just might be" would be first up)

@tpp this too shall pass

@shirt people here are super into my lastfm! unfortunately does not represent the entirety of my listening experience, but A+ for weird effort

wow shirt with mb the creepiest post in ilx history

idk why you insist i'm saying he's the originator of any of these techniques.

i'm not. i'm saying he's at the beginning of a career & acting like he's surpassed artists with lengthier catalogs & more fully-flesh careers is ridiculous

(and imo if you want to talk emotional breadth w/ thug i'd think "just might be" would be first up)

you're confusing 'breadth' and 'depth'—i'm not talking about any individual song, but the array of moods & styles available to him.

you really like to talk in prescriptive absolutes about other people's opinions :) yes, "just might be" is probably the deepest too, but i'm saying it shows the most emotional breadth of any of his songs, both within itself (it's got the perfect balance of the elusive "triumphant sad" vibe – built around a minor key choral bed and yet beginning with the insistence, "living life bro, i'm happy," and expanding from there), and within his discog (i.e., breaking new expressive ground for him).

u two both need a breadth mint

young thug

http://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/469/1*PVWmkv2zOg5kH_rrMcB-9Q.jpeg

https://thenib.com/the-highgate-county-fancy-chicken-show-637382c60de1

trying and failing to read past the first four panels of that is probably how me & d-40's rap opinions hackathon has felt for the rest of you

instead of 'breadth' lets say 'range' bc you're clearly not understanding me—i'm talking about the emotional range—emotional diversity—of his catalog

which is good, but thus far still in the shadows of artists who had a few years head start on him

"you're clearly not understanding me" either b/c that's "clearly" what i mean. lunch break?

you really like to talk in prescriptive absolutes about other people's opinions

tbf you articulate your opinions as if they're prescriptive absolutes

ain't prescribing nothing! i simply said young thug has recently become my favorite rap vocalist, then contended why that's not a take that merits condescension. as for opinions stated as absolutes, that's most of ilx (you included 'tbf')

it is a take that merits condescension bc you stated your preference in stark relief to the rest of rap music, and belittled it for not doing what it evidently already does

the way you double back on "it's just my opinion man" when anyone disagrees with you is really silly, you're on a message board full of opinions about music, discussion and contention of personal opinions happen. it's just your opinions tend to reveal your shallow engagement with the music

@d-40 for someone who prattles on so much about how i don't "get" what you're saying, you continue to misapprehend the baseline implication of my stated preference. who, among anyone you have mentioned or otherwise, combines all these different techniques (which are as generally commonplace to rap, by this point, as guitar leads or non-lyrical vocal interjections are to rock) to an end effect similar to young thug? again, i'm not saying he invented anything other than the delicate balance of ratios he's found for himself in the past year or so. yes, in a much more restrained way, gucci did the adlib thing (even the "skurr skurr skurr") years before thug, and yes, lil wayne arguably "traveled greater distance" than thug has in getting from tha block to "can't believe it." but the end effect of gucci's vocal performances is leagues removed from what thug's doing, and you could say that about any of your "counterpoints" (to a point i never made). it's like someone saying ian curtis is their favorite rock vocalist, and you use it as an opportunity to soapbox about elvis. future or wayne of five years ago is probably the most stylistically proximal of the lot, but it's still not even close.

@bradnelson you're going to have to make it about young thug if you wanna repeatedly come at me ad hominem in a thread about young thug. what's so shallow about my engagement w/ the music? i would guess i've listened to at least comparable amounts of what's pertinent here as you have (though feel free to prove otherwise), and can guarantee far greater engagement/comprehension on the one other topic on which i've seemed to bother you (k-pop, for the folks following along at home). though i would have to doubt that's as significant to this discussion as you seem to think it is, given d-40 has prob listened to more rap than me but seems to be making widely off-base conclusions about big-picture musical fundamentals at least in regards to belittling my perspective :)

also both here and w/r/t k-pop the point has never been "it's just my opinion man," rather "it's not a ridiculous opinion." some opinions are. :D

@deej: is there anything at all, in your opinion, that young thug does better than keef, future, gucci or wayne? If so, what and how? Thanks in advance.

@deej: plz dont answer that^, thank you

anyone else digging spaghetti factory? love how metro boomin's beat is so carnivalesque and allows thugger's "i want your spaghetti / i'm bleeding like freddy" line to feel sinister. and it works super well after that low-register vocalizing in the first verse. apparently the song is just called 'spaghetti' but the person who uploaded it added factory as a joke, which i frankly find hilarious

@deej: is there anything at all, in your opinion, that young thug does better than keef, future, gucci or wayne? If so, what and how? Thanks in advance.

― longneck, Wednesday, May 27, 2015 3:24 AM (8 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't even understand this question or why u think I'm shitting on thug. Barter is one of the best tapes of the year

probably a ref to the restaurant no? xp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lckq3SbUUW0

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