A few weeks ago, I watched Thug commit arson at the Observatory in Orange County. Over 1,000 people chanted along to every word for roughly an hour — at least the words they could understand. We’ve all read enough about how Thug’s genius stems from his plaintive yelps, vehicular imitations, and ad-libs, but I’ll drown myself in promethazine burbling that he’s just rapping with new language — no different than when Ghostface was starting songs like “scientific/my hand kissed Scientific, my hand kissed it/Robotic let’s think optimistic. You probably missed it, watch me dolly dick it.” Vivid laser eye guys should wear different lenses.
Listen to Thug enough and your brain becomes an unofficial Rosetta Stone, similar to spending time in a foreign land. You start out understanding nothing and by the end you can fluently order two cups stuffed in the local dialect. There’s a beauty in art that doesn’t make any sense. You can take J Cole’s linear, “let me tell you about my sexual gaffes” raps, I’ll prefer those whose brains exhibit no clear-cut grooves. Thug might as well be Lewis Carroll using Jabberwockies as an extended metaphor about eating pussy. That’s not to give him some false literary merit, but more to offer a reminder that most of the best artists operate with no blueprint. Thug’s clearly a rap nerd who studied Wayne who studied Jay who studied Kane who studied Melle Mel. You don’t need much to trace the lineage. If you think this technical facility comes by accident, I have an East Atlanta Santa Suit for you to wear (but you need to have the “getting money” gut to fit into it properly).
Somehow, we’re still waiting on Thugga’s proper debut. Of course, the idea of a proper debut in 2016 is mostly irrelevant. Thug has put out more songs than your second-favorite 90s artist probably did in their entire career. No exaggeration. In 2014-15, Jeffrey Williams released more than Q-Tip or Mos Def ever have. The only difference is that Mos can rightfully get props for writing anthems about artesian water and riparian rights in 3rd world countries, while most critics will ignore Thug for releasing an anti-cancer tribute as his first single from Slime Season 3.
Few things in this world are binary. Just because Thug isn’t shouting “Black Lives Matter,” doesn’t mean that “Fuck Pigs” isn’t a reasonably similar sentiment. He might be quoted deflecting political intentions by emphasizing his desire to get money and wear ice, but that strikes me as more the image he wants to project. No one would ever catch Wayne “feeling the Bern,” but “Georgia Bush” remains one of the most memorable songs of that bleak era. When I asked him about it, he shrugged his shoulders and said he wasn’t political in the slightest, but that it was just the perspective of someone from New Orleans.
That’s the point though. Thug might not be out there on the front lines with America’s top scientist B.o.B. working to find a cure for natural plagues, but a song like “Fuck Cancer’ is a statement even if it’s not trying to be a STATEMENT. It’s a song that gives label heads nightmares. You can almost imagine the text messages being sent to Lyor, trying to play it cool even though he’s being told that the first single off Thug’s latest mixtape is an anti-cancer screed dedicated to Boosie, where the second line of the hook is “I fuck your main bitch/I give her cooties.” It also features a Migo.
No need to lie and pretend that Thug isn’t rapping about most of the same subjects that he always has: straps, styrofoam cups, sex, and smoking. But he does arguably one of the most difficult things anyone can do. He makes old cliches seem new. The Seven Deadly Sins sound like they’ve been re-invented for the summer of 16 (no Spotted Owl). Thug has that rare ability to rap at such breakneck speeds and lights out fluidity that his voice seems to match the piano line. He can twist his voice to make it gnarled and bleached or slippery and levitating. He’s screaming that he’s going to fuck something, anything. Your girlfriend, sister, cancer. Whatever. It’s perfectly absurd but gravely serious, an anthem that comes from some alternate world where you can cure cancer by cooking in the kitchen. Watch him on Sway above. He’s smarter than you thought he was; he’s probably smarter than you and I.
Thug will never be the kind of rapper willing to telegraph a “serious song.” He’s aware that it’s usually corny and feels alien to the type of instinctive spontaneous artist he is. The depth comes from asides, blink-and-you-miss it moments — like on “Never Made Love,” where he never sleeps with a girl because she looks like his brother’s nurse. Then he adds “he in a hearse.” He’ll never wait for you to catch the punchline or feel the affects. His brain and voice are moving too fast for that.
He’ll write an anti-cancer anthem and shout out Boosie and by the middle of the song change his mind like a shifting wind. But the original sentiment still stands and I’m on my 43rd listen of this song. Did you really want to hear Thug go off on a scientific tangent about what we can do help people suffering? He will always Mackle less. Instead, he did something entirely different, something very simple but just as complicated. We might not be able to heal the afflicted anytime soon, but at the very least, we can all scream “Fuck Cancer, shout out to Boosie,” together.
