Young Thug thread

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

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?

― een, Sunday, May 31, 2015 11:54 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Is soyrev going at answer for this hypocrisy

haha yeah messy, though not contradictory. as i've said, i do think young thug has good lines, even if they're not particularly "quotable" -- you have to invest a little to find/understand them. so while he doesn't *need* lines, because he's such a charismatic stylist in general (one stand-out example being yeah, it is pretty incredible someone's casually found a way of incorporating an extended yawn into a compelling melody and rhyme scheme), they *are* essential to the entire thug package (i.e., he's got my attention, i'm delving deeper, hey yeah there're some great lyrics here too).

so: they're essential to what makes him as great as he is, but he'd still be one of the best going rn even were they all lazy throwaways and nonsense :)

your opinion is objectively bad and wrong

his lyrics really aren't that hard to understand! ffs

"baby can you feel my pain all my diamonds need to be drained"

WHAT??!??!

I have a more practical question about Young Thug: How does a mixtape dude get paid? I mean, guest verses aside and everything. Has he basically been living on signing-deal money for the last few years?

shows

"my car is rare like a mullet"

Yeah, I guess that would be most of it. Looking at his tour schedule, he's been on the road for most of the past year. I have no idea what someone at his level can clear on a given night.

ten points off for using "amidst" in a sentence.

The lines that noz is highlighting are certainly evocative but strike me more like Masta Ace saying "I got girls, but I would never bring sand to the beach" as opposed to Masta Ace saying "I project my voice so it's right in the crowd/There's a sign at the door: no bitin' allowed" if you smell me?

Like they're stuff you can sort of sit with an toss around if you were invested enough, as opposed to lines that take a life of their own? Like will some rapper in 5 years make some sly allusion to "my car is rare like a mullet?" or are we just beyond that being a measuring stick? Is Vineability the new "Hip-Hop Quotable" to the point where "lines" aren;t things you can see on paper or even repeat? If Missy Elliott dropped "Work It" today, would she be regarded as the greatest rapper of a generation?

not being confrontational, just thinking aloud, so please don't turn this into a dick-measuring contest, usual gaggle of twitter cats

Dog there are like a million possible lyrical styles and you're still trying to grade this on some sort of linear map of good -> banal -> bad

In the nineties the idea of saying young thug was a good rapper wouldn't be this same kind of fucking frightened suspicion, he has a particular rap style that is funny and unique, but you keep acting like it's somehow coming up short for you in some way when really you don't actually hear any of it!

You could stand here and say the exact same shit about Raekwon if you wanted.

"Rolling like trump you get your meat lumped isn't exactly no bitin allowed"

I like his particular rap style that is funny and unique! The disconnect is in most writing I see about him!

Like, I feel like the goalposts have moved very quickly in the last three years to where someone like Keef or Future or even Lil B could be talked about like "This guy is doing something outside the world of traditional rap as we know it, but it's interesting and can be appreciated thusly" to Young Thug just being blanketed as a king of feels and a visionary sculptor and the most gifted, forward-thinking contemporary rapper on the planet