Young Thug And Why Rap Isn't Really Rap Anymore

Barstool Sports has reached its current state of relevance in large part due to SAFTB. SAFTB has reached its current state of relevance in large part due to drunk college kids. And what do these kids do on Saturday nights? Well, lots of things, but whatever they do, there’s usually rap music playing in the background. But rap music is a topic that’s consistently overlooked on the world’s foremost blogging website. Am I qualified to change that? Given that I’m an unpaid Barstool Heartland intern who wasn’t even hired to blog, absolutely not. But as an 18 year-old, I saw the Barstool workforce leave new school rap music poorly represented in their choices to add to the #DartySZN playlist and decided that something must be done.

So without further ado, Young Thug dropped an album titled “Beautiful Thugger Girls” over the weekend. If you know nothing about Young Thug, just know that he is an extremely bizarre and unpredictable dude. If you want proof, here’s the BTG album cover where HE. HAS. NO. LEGS.

I wasn’t the least bit surprised when he teased on his Twitter a couple weeks ago that his next album was gonna be a singing album. (This is the same guy whose last album release was accompanied by a temporary name change to the entire phrase “No, My Name is Jeffery.”) But I’ll be honest; I was scared. The Young Thug I knew and loved would never be affiliated with an acoustic guitar. The Young Thug I knew and loved did this:

But the new Young Thug, or at least the new Young Thug until there’s a newer Young Thug, shouts “YEEHAW” just 25 seconds into BTG. And I’m ashamed of ever being scared of this new Young Thug, because BTG is 55 minutes of musical brilliance.

For starters, Thug’s audio engineer, Alex Tumay, is an absolute mastermind. Last week, I didn’t know such an occupation existed. Now I know that they exist for two reasons: 1. To give us white fellas a chance to get into the rap game, and 2. To do what is called mixing. In short, mixing is layering the volumes of the different components of a song optimally, and then adding effects that simply make everything sound better. It’s kinda confusing, but turn BTG up on some good speakers and you’ll understand.

Secondly, the album is a testament to the fact that rap music is starting to include less and less actual rapping. The spoken word is outdated. Thug, Travis Scott, Quavo, Lil Uzi Vert, and Tory Lanez are leading the charge to make the rap genre more musical. Their lyrics have distinct sequences of pitch that could be written on a staff just like most music can. That doesn’t mean they do that. Young Thug is no middle school choir teacher. It just means it sounds more pleasing. So while my dad may have a point saying “that’s not music” when I’m playing Desiigner, he can’t say the same when I’m bumping Relationship, On Fire, Take Care, or Tomorrow Til Infinity from BTG.

Bottom line: Beautiful Thugger Girls should be an aux cord staple right now. Bump it religiously, at least until Travis Scott and Quavo’s collab album drops and makes all other music ever made completely irrelevant.

Written by @tracearbuckle20