Young Thug thread

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")

@een yes young thug is about fucking yawns! and the incredible percussive things he does with his voice in "about the money." etc etc. and yes, he's also about good lyrics. the whole point is he's an incredible package deal, the way he ties it all together is distinct and i think miles apart from those whom he may superficially resemble

your bolded bit is especially offbase b/c it just misses the point, they're both essential to what he is and does. that said, a young thug that was all vocalizations would prob suck, yeah, but lots of people do good things with lyrics in ways similar to how he does 'em, it's his treatment of the 'text' that sets him apart.

as for examples of "texture," this is kinda obvious: a particularly screeching "skurt" strafing under a line of a verse, extra use of reverb for specific lines, a bit of melodyne or autotune to smooth the edges off others, violent exhalations serving as a closed hi-hat for a dramatic bar of "just might be" (plus the chorus effect on the patois lead vocal there)...

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

your bolded bit is especially offbase b/c it just misses the point, they're both essential to what he is and does.
--soyrev

the lyrics are essential to what he does but he doesn't need them?

He's saying -- Whiney too -- that he spews what he wants to spew -- good, bad, indifferent.

een otm

Maybe overstating it to say he's not about melodies but

http://i.imgur.com/i5EAxHN.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0qoV813.gif

Young Twombly

Lol soyrev didn't know you were a writer

yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns! yes young thug is about fucking yawns!

lol idk what the above screenshot is from but i have nothing to do with it. this thread has become the legend of oj da strawman and insufficiently familiar to comment's k-pop vendetta :D

it's silly to say lyrics are what young thug's all about when it's all but impossible to make out everything, even just more than the gist, of what he's saying. someone made the point upthread that "lifestyle" is his biggest hook to date and like a third of it is unintelligible. to really appreciate his lyrics you've got to listen a half dozen times and/or sit down to read a lyric transcription (which most of the time are incorrect anyway, q.e.d), at which point you've already been compelled by ~something else~ he's doing with his voice....so...

**all but impossible at first brush

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

This is the most ridiculous thing said in this whole debacle.

Whinegarten and soyrev are equally wrong, they sit at opposite ends of the spectrum of wrongness bc they actually agree and find the music illegible one just likes it as a part of his brand and the other is invested in saying the emperor has no clothes, both are wrong