Torii MacAdams is the Rap Game Nick Dunne
Who’s the King of The South? Very few rappers can lay serious claim to the title, but if between 2004 and 2009 you’d have said “Lil Wayne,” few would have batted an eyelash. The dreadlocked goblin capitalized on incredibly fallow years in rap music with a non-stop barrage of albums and mixtapes so popular that Dedication 3, a free mixtape, sold 70,000 copies. Wayne’s growling, often ham-fisted, simile-heavy raps defined rap at the time, and his drug-addled diminishment shouldn’t overshadow the fact that his stylistic impact on the present-day crop of Southern rappers is unmatched. “Amazing Amy,” featuring Migos, is a passing of the torch.
Lil Wayne entering Migos’ orbit was probably inevitable; Wayne’s recent resurgence, spurred by the masters of Tha Carter V being chained to a gold terlet in Baby’s dungeon*, coincides with Migos’ powers at, or close to, their peak. Chain snatchers, wilting violet interviewers, rappers, and, presumably, winsome lasses have been pulled into Quavo, Takeoff, and Offset’s immense gravitational field. “Amazing Amy” is light work for Migos– Quavo raps “She’s too good for me like some vitamins/She swallowed the dick like a Heineken,” which is appropriately punctuated by an adlibbed “Nasty!” The Atlantan trio can rap about crazy gold diggers in their sleep, but they do it with their typical metronomic aplomb. There’s only one Southern rapper who can claim to have captured the zeitgeist under his Givenchy kilt the way Migos have– Young Thug.
“Amazing Amy” doesn’t feature Thugger, but it opens with the head-spinning anachronism of Wayne squeaking and warbling like the more effeminate half of Rich Gang. This is confusing. Shameless even, though Wayne does the best Young Thug impersonation one could possibly do. Without Lil Wayne, there is no Young Thug, but while the latter rose to prominence on the wings of Birdman, the former became a victim of more punchlines than those contained in his increasingly cringeworthy lyrics. Here’s the final bit of irony, though: Wayne doesn’t sound half-bad stealing the flow of the usurper to the Cash Money throne. The former Hot Boy will never regain the chokehold he once had on rap music, but increased sobriety and Migos ad-libs make him sound more youthful than he has in years. He might not be Young Thug, but he’s not that young anyway.
*It’s also where he keeps Cory Gunz
