Young Thug // Slime Season
by Samuel Redmond on September 25, 2015
Posted in: Album Review, Hip Hop, Music, Rap
Photo by Kendrick Brinson
Young Thug is an inexplicable character whose sudden rise to fame sheds light on the American music industry’s desperate need for something spectacularly different. Is he an artistic genius? Or has he simply fooled some people into believing he is? I argue that it doesn’t matter. He’s better enjoyed without analysis or classification. After all, he is only a character, supposedly from another planet.
Jeffrey Williams’s “Young Thug” moniker and often-indecipherable lyrics cast the veil of a marginally talented, unoriginal rapper pursuing a chance hit. Like many contemporary rappers, Thugger’s subject material rarely extends beyond drugs, women, and material wealth. At first listen, you might even get irritated or uncomfortable with his braggadocios yelping. If you’ve looked at the headlines, you might be under the assumption that he’s the first gay trap star, or a ruthless criminal plotting to kill Lil’ Wayne. Regardless of his mysterious, often polarizing reputation, Young Thug doesn’t seem to care what you think of him. Young Thug is not misunderstood. He just has no interest in being understood.
Last week, Young Thug released his highly anticipated mixtape, Slime Season, to fans for the price of watching a 30 second ad on livemixtapes.com. At the very onset of the tape, Thug directs his middle finger towards the Internet gossip with a track featuring his supposed enemy, Lil’ Wayne, called “Take Kare.” To anyone following the persistent stream of leaked songs that has been left behind for fans like a trail of cookie crumbs over the past year, the song is archaic. However, the opening track with Wayne emphasizes the very nature of his remorseless aesthetic and serves as the foundation for the rest of the tape. The 17-track mixtape (18 counting the bonus track) will do very little to make fans out of his stubborn critics, but if you have the desire to step into Thugger’s strange world, Slime Season, is your trail map. His lyrics, layered over dynamic beats that match his vocal acrobatics, are both incomprehensible at times and vividly imaginative during others. The tape is peppered with old leaks and throwaway tracks, but also a slate of brand new infectious songs that redefine his own boundaries, and therefore those of his own “genre.”
Best Tracks: “Wood Would” “Freaky” “Mine” “Best Friend” “No Way” “Stunna”
Young Thug’s Slime Season is out 9/15. Stream the mixtape via Audiomack here.
Sammy Redmond is a super senior feb who hosts Great Movies With Better Soundtracks Wednesdays from 1-2pm on WRMC.
