This EP is good. I love the beat on "Real in My Veins." LODT was has always been my favorite producer for Thug.
As I see D-40 mentioned on Twitter, the discourse around this release/Thug's career is extremely boring (the Box Office Mojo-fication of music coverage is lamentable in general). I've been slowly reading Jesse McCarthy's n+1 piece on trap—which imo is pretentious in all the best ways but ymmv—so in contrast to that here's this:
Young Thug enacts a Charlie Parker theory of trap. Virtuosity, drugginess, genius, vulnerability, an impish childishness almost as a compensation for the overabundance of talent, the superfluidity of imagination. A Cocteau from East Atlanta, he teases the beat, skipping off it like a yo-yo, yodeling, crooning, blurting, squawking, purring, working his game on you, finessing, playing ad libs like Curtis Mayfield worked strings, or scatting and growling low like Louis Armstrong if he were sweating it out in a freestyle battle with James Brown, bouncing back and forth between personalities. His polymorphously perverse sexuality is so insistently graphic and deadpan that it has virtually zero erotic charge, au courant pimp talk channeled through a kind of private board game of his own imagination, a Candyland fantasia slimed in promethazine. By contrast, his persona oozes sex. In leather jackets, ultratight jeans and Janet Jackson piercing arrangements, he’s a Mick Jagger–ish rake on the make who is also shy and easily wounded, suddenly open for a hug. A favorite and telling picture posted to Instagram account thuggerthugger1 (5.2 million followers) captures him with his arm around Sir Elton John, posing like a polite politician in photo-op mode (Obama-alt) next to Sir Elton, who is dressed in a gold-trim Adidas tracksuit and a black thugger cap.If the outlandish persona were all there was to it, he might be written off as a variant to Weezy that went nowhere. But the music really does, somehow, sound like the future, like something that’s never been tried before, a radical experiment. His concern for innovating, like his persistent concern for his kidney health, is a marker of identity, not just a lifestyle. The boundaries he pushes are only partly for our benefit; his chameleon love affair with the frisson of the louche, the lawless elasticity of language, and the plasticity of the self-fashioning body in motion is all of a piece. He insists on being the soloist and chorus all at once; his is an orchestral impulse, a surround sound lyricizing every inch of space on the track. Words aren’t about what they mean, but, in the spirit of Baraka’s “Black Dada Nihilismus,” only how they sound. They are rhetorical and lyrical ammunition, raw material to freak like Jimi, not satisfied until the instrument wails, weirds out, trips over itself with a surplus that is no longer within respectable or even recognizable bounds — hence Thugger’s fundamental queerness in the most capacious sense of that word. Free spirit from day one: “When I was 12, my feet were so small I wore my sisters’ glitter shoes. My dad would whoop me: ‘You’re not going to school now, you’ll embarrass us!’ But I never gave a f — what people think.” The music critic for the Washington Post writes that “if he lived inside a comic book, his speech balloons would be filled with Jackson Pollock splatters,” which is halfway there (why not Basquiat?). Thugger is more exciting than Pollock, who never wore a garment described by Billboard as “geisha couture meets Mortal Kombat’s Raiden” that started a national conversation. Thugger’s work is edgier, riskier, sans white box; if anything it is closer to Warhol in coloration, pop art without the pretension. It is loved, admired, hated, and feared by people who have never and may never set foot in a museum of “modern art.”
If the outlandish persona were all there was to it, he might be written off as a variant to Weezy that went nowhere. But the music really does, somehow, sound like the future, like something that’s never been tried before, a radical experiment. His concern for innovating, like his persistent concern for his kidney health, is a marker of identity, not just a lifestyle. The boundaries he pushes are only partly for our benefit; his chameleon love affair with the frisson of the louche, the lawless elasticity of language, and the plasticity of the self-fashioning body in motion is all of a piece. He insists on being the soloist and chorus all at once; his is an orchestral impulse, a surround sound lyricizing every inch of space on the track. Words aren’t about what they mean, but, in the spirit of Baraka’s “Black Dada Nihilismus,” only how they sound. They are rhetorical and lyrical ammunition, raw material to freak like Jimi, not satisfied until the instrument wails, weirds out, trips over itself with a surplus that is no longer within respectable or even recognizable bounds — hence Thugger’s fundamental queerness in the most capacious sense of that word. Free spirit from day one: “When I was 12, my feet were so small I wore my sisters’ glitter shoes. My dad would whoop me: ‘You’re not going to school now, you’ll embarrass us!’ But I never gave a f — what people think.” The music critic for the Washington Post writes that “if he lived inside a comic book, his speech balloons would be filled with Jackson Pollock splatters,” which is halfway there (why not Basquiat?). Thugger is more exciting than Pollock, who never wore a garment described by Billboard as “geisha couture meets Mortal Kombat’s Raiden” that started a national conversation. Thugger’s work is edgier, riskier, sans white box; if anything it is closer to Warhol in coloration, pop art without the pretension. It is loved, admired, hated, and feared by people who have never and may never set foot in a museum of “modern art.”
https://nplusonemag.com/issue-32/essays/notes-on-trap/
― rob, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 20:44 (five years ago) link
man idk that's pretty bad
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 20:49 (five years ago) link
i mean i'm probably not on that piece's wavelength tbh
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 20:51 (five years ago) link
lol no worries :) I might be alone in feeling nostalgic for 90s-ish academics-trying-be-hip cultural commentary
― rob, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 21:08 (five years ago) link
tbh I'd be up for reading just about anything that didn't start from the premise that dude has flushed his career down the toilet like we're all shareholders
― rob, Wednesday, 26 September 2018 21:16 (five years ago) link
why is so much hip hop discourse like that? I don't get it?
― Scritti Vanilli - The Word Girl You Know It's True (dog latin), Wednesday, 26 September 2018 23:17 (five years ago) link
i am a shareholder in Young Thug Inc.
― flopson, Thursday, 27 September 2018 00:02 (five years ago) link
YTI is at underperform so you might want to explore your options
― rob, Thursday, 27 September 2018 00:31 (five years ago) link
― princess of hell (BradNelson), Wednesday, September 26, 2018 3:49 PM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
otm
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 27 September 2018 02:10 (five years ago) link
i think the new project is good enough but not touching the stuff from 2014-2016
― ILX’s bad boy (D-40), Thursday, 27 September 2018 02:11 (five years ago) link
last thing that really grabbed me was jeffery
― sprout god (lag∞n), Thursday, 27 September 2018 02:46 (five years ago) link
selling my stock
― flopson, Thursday, 27 September 2018 03:45 (five years ago) link
A lot of writers are really invested in promoting the narrative of Young Thug as some unassailable creative genius, aren't they? All of those name drops in the n+1 piece are astounding, it almost reads like parody of the discourse that has surrounded him over the last 5 years or so.
― triggercut, Thursday, 27 September 2018 04:05 (five years ago) link
n plus 1 sux
― flopson, Thursday, 27 September 2018 04:18 (five years ago) link
good Noisey interview with the engineer, interesting comments on the Rocket Man leak:
How hard of a secret is that to keep?I actually hadn’t heard it until I got it for this project, which was after the leak. I don’t listen to any leaks. If I see it, I block whoever posted it and move on. It’s that upsetting where it’s like, I’d just rather not. So when someone wants to talk about it, I just block them and go about my day. It’s just easier. I would be angry all the time if that’s all I saw. I saw it briefly, and people were hitting me, and I was just like, I don’t know. It’s one of those situations where you hope it doesn’t ruin a great song and this time we didn’t let that happen. When it comes to songs leaking, it’s such a sore spot especially for us considering how many songs leaked in the past. I’m just happy this one made the cut. It’s such a big moment for him, that I’m glad he didn’t let people outside of the camp ruin it for him.
― niels, Friday, 28 September 2018 12:55 (five years ago) link
https://noisey.vice.com/en_us/article/ev7p9k/alex-tumay-young-thug-on-the-rvn-engineer-interview
He is awful live.
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 6 October 2018 03:13 (five years ago) link
tbh many rappers in that genre are
unless you're there to mosh and party, then they're great
― niels, Saturday, 6 October 2018 10:16 (five years ago) link
nah even for that he’s terrible
― Van Horn Street, Saturday, 6 October 2018 11:57 (five years ago) link
― niels, Saturday, October 6, 2018 6:16 AM (five hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― lag∞n, Saturday, 6 October 2018 15:42 (five years ago) link
I saw him live a couple of years ago and he was pretty good as far as I can remember.
― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Monday, 8 October 2018 09:27 (five years ago) link
new album (So Much Fun) just dropped
― Number None, Friday, 16 August 2019 10:33 (four years ago) link
It has a song called 'Sup Mate' :'-D
― frame casual (dog latin), Friday, 16 August 2019 13:56 (four years ago) link
Appropriate album title IMO
― Tim F, Sunday, 18 August 2019 03:39 (four years ago) link
a lot of fun, indeed, but not enough weirdness imo. lots of highlights before it gets a bit bogged down by guest stars towards the end.
nav is truly terrible, idk why all the trap guys like him so much
― jakey mo collier (voodoo chili), Sunday, 18 August 2019 04:03 (four years ago) link
what future song uses the exact flow as "lil baby"? this is killing me
― jakey mo collier (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 21:58 (four years ago) link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BeYG-tboiOU
― самокритика me, daddy (||||||||), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 22:13 (four years ago) link
oh yeah, just the single from his last album lol
― jakey mo collier (voodoo chili), Tuesday, 20 August 2019 22:31 (four years ago) link
album rules, much better than beautiful thugger girls
― american bradass (BradNelson), Wednesday, 4 September 2019 18:12 (four years ago) link
Yeah it's easily his best since Jeffrey (and his first #1 album too albeit almost all due to streaming) so the lack of discussion here is a little surprising.
― methanietanner, Wednesday, 4 September 2019 18:20 (four years ago) link
yeah i've definitely come around on the album, tho idk if i like it more than BTG, which i liked more than most
― normal fucking rockman (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 4 September 2019 18:35 (four years ago) link
it's a fun easy listen imo
― (•̪●) (carne asada), Wednesday, 4 September 2019 18:37 (four years ago) link
really all of it ranges from pretty good to great except for that track with nav
― normal fucking rockman (voodoo chili), Wednesday, 4 September 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link
"what's the move"!!!! what a song
― american bradass (BradNelson), Monday, 9 September 2019 23:06 (four years ago) link
I like it but I haven't really found anything that jumps out too much compared to Jeffery and BTG. Production is solid but not that interesting, as is Thugger's delivery
― frame casual (dog latin), Tuesday, 10 September 2019 21:54 (four years ago) link
Qualifier 75!1 Kool Keith/Tom Waits! https://t.co/luuAnkl2GI2 Young Thug/Rich Homie Quan! https://t.co/IrJJGu5hK03 Clipping/La Chat! https://t.co/FlK0aK8CVU4 Body Count/Riley Gale! https://t.co/QCoV0mpXJD— World Cup Of Duets (@peoples_pop) October 11, 2020
some serious injustice happening here
― covidiot wind (voodoo chili), Sunday, 11 October 2020 12:36 (three years ago) link
uh
Young Thug says he hasn’t worked with Andre 3000 because he feels Dre looks down on the new generation. I feel like Thug made that up in his head. 🤷🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️🤷🏿♂️ pic.twitter.com/NFWubhSACG— Justin L. Hunte 🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@TheCompanyMan) November 27, 2020
― the serious avant-garde universalist right now (forksclovetofu), Saturday, 28 November 2020 06:01 (three years ago) link
This guy really fell off, huh?
― Jouster, Thursday, 10 December 2020 09:00 (three years ago) link
Weird. Maybe for Thug it’s a matter of “This particular thing is so uncannily close to my wheelhouse im going to dismiss it outright” or something. Seems irrational and very surprising
― Specific Ocean Blue (dog latin), Thursday, 10 December 2020 09:33 (three years ago) link
he had some solid gunna collabs this year but im not entirely sure if he fell off because his one album of 2020 was a full-length collaboration with chris brown and i will never ever listen to that
― la table sur la table (voodoo chili), Thursday, 10 December 2020 12:40 (three years ago) link
― Jouster, Thursday, December 10, 2020 4:00 AM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink
he had a top 10 hit lol
― lag∞n, Thursday, 10 December 2020 14:21 (three years ago) link
yeah it's pretty inarguable that he's more popular than he's ever been
― la table sur la table (voodoo chili), Thursday, 10 December 2020 14:53 (three years ago) link
tho it is true he just hasnt released a ton of music the last couple few years
― lag∞n, Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:03 (three years ago) link
I'm honestly a little grateful to have gotten a bit of a respite from new music from Thugger, from like 2015-2019 it was like a full-time job keeping up with him.
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:20 (three years ago) link
wonder what hes been doing
― lag∞n, Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:33 (three years ago) link
evol j otm, by the time BTG came out I was p satiated with him, but there's stuff from that absurdly productive period I prob still haven't heard
― rob, Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:44 (three years ago) link
gunna's "dollaz on my head" and aminé's "compensating" are his guest verses most worth searching for this year imo
― la table sur la table (voodoo chili), Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:52 (three years ago) link
ooh, his spot on dababy's "blind" is nice too
― la table sur la table (voodoo chili), Thursday, 10 December 2020 15:54 (three years ago) link
I love that Megan song he's on but mostly just for the beat rather than anything Thug's bringing to the table
― Evans on Hammond (evol j), Thursday, 10 December 2020 16:23 (three years ago) link
thug is def better generally on his own songs than features, you need the whole thug experience
― lag∞n, Thursday, 10 December 2020 16:47 (three years ago) link