<p>At a certain point, it all comes down to voice. The story hip-hop has often told about itself is that it’s a game of lyrical one-upmanship, an ecosystem of artistes looking for words the others couldn’t possibly use better. But just as often — more often — it’s a runway show of vocal eccentricity. Words, and how they’re arranged, take a backseat to how they’re delivered, the fresh paint on the tired old car.<br /><br /></p>.<p>This isn’t the world where the more legible Drake or Jay Z is king, but one that privileges E-40’s roller-coaster whoops, Pimp C’s unfinished sneers, Guru’s rigid rasp, Snoop Dogg’s liquid drawl. Sometimes this sort of specificity is an express train to success, and sometimes the obstacle that knocks the train off the track. But hip-hop would be nowhere without its stylists.<br /><br />In rappers’ family<br /><br />Welcome Young Thug to that family. During the last couple of years, this Atlanta rapper has been a certified oddball, with a scraped-up voice that’s forever imbalanced. He can sound wistful, or lost, or agitated, or all of those things at once. He’s a boaster, but he rarely sounds arrogant.<br /><br />Atlanta has its own genealogy of stylists, which in the last few years has included the sly mumbler Gucci Mane and the lovelorn android Future. Young Thug owes a little to each of them but is most clearly influenced by what history will undoubtedly refer to as drug-era Lil Wayne. During that prime period — roughly the mid-late 2000s — Lil Wayne was practically melting on songs, his mind and his voice seeming to travel in different directions. Words came out mushy or incomplete, but with real sparkle nonetheless.<br /><br />This is Young Thug’s gift, to sound completely unsteady while being seriously focused. <br /><br />‘Black Portland’, his outstanding new mixtape with Bloody Jay, is the moment where his idiosyncrasies have hardened into a style identifiable and unique, and also indelible and broadly appealing.<br /><br />On ‘Black Portland’, Young Thug’s strangeness — which on earlier mixtapes like ‘1017 Thug’ and ‘I Came From Nothing 2’ could be grating, or at the least inconsistent is molded into something reliably beautiful. He is unmistakable, and he varies his presentation from song to song.<br /><br /> On Signs, he raps as if he’s angrily conducting an orchestra, or delivering a scolding TED talk. On Nothing But Some Pain, he delves into pure preacher cadences. And on Movin, he takes a break for a few measures rapped in a hilarious whisper flow.<br /><br />Gift of words<br /><br />But underneath all the presentation, Young Thug has a gift for words and off-kilter metaphor. She say she not with it, I see straight through her like linen he raps on the most aggressive number here (and one with an unprintable name); Money stand like eight feet just like two midgets, he wheezes on Danny Glover, which is becoming a genuine hit.<br /><br />As for Bloody Jay, he’s less of an obvious eccentric than Young Thug, but more energetic — especially in delivering booming hooks — and, in this context, useful in helping to present Young Thug not just as someone blindly following his muse, but as someone who plays well with others. The same is true of the recent remix of Wale’s Clappers, in which <br />Young Thug’s dreamy exultations serve as a soothing coda to the song’s literal desire.<br /><br />The way we learn about a song’s potency these days is by watching others lose their mind to it on Vine or Instagram. In this case of Young Thug’s Danny Glover, the eager fans were Drake, who was captured rapping along to it, and Kanye West, who was filmed dancing to it with a hood pulled low over his face. (Young Thug recently said that he and West had recorded some music together.)<br /><br />Implicit challenge<br /><br />At least a couple of rappers have risen to the implicit challenge Young Thug has issued. Most notable has been the chameleonic Nicki Minaj, who released her own bracing version of Danny Glover in which she did her best imitation of Young Thug’s decaying style.<br /><br />Other rappers tried their hand at delivering verses on Stoner, another recent Young Thug anthem, less successfully. But Nicki Minaj’s homage had legs, and heart. It was one signature stylist welcoming another to the club.<br /></p>
<p>At a certain point, it all comes down to voice. The story hip-hop has often told about itself is that it’s a game of lyrical one-upmanship, an ecosystem of artistes looking for words the others couldn’t possibly use better. But just as often — more often — it’s a runway show of vocal eccentricity. Words, and how they’re arranged, take a backseat to how they’re delivered, the fresh paint on the tired old car.<br /><br /></p>.<p>This isn’t the world where the more legible Drake or Jay Z is king, but one that privileges E-40’s roller-coaster whoops, Pimp C’s unfinished sneers, Guru’s rigid rasp, Snoop Dogg’s liquid drawl. Sometimes this sort of specificity is an express train to success, and sometimes the obstacle that knocks the train off the track. But hip-hop would be nowhere without its stylists.<br /><br />In rappers’ family<br /><br />Welcome Young Thug to that family. During the last couple of years, this Atlanta rapper has been a certified oddball, with a scraped-up voice that’s forever imbalanced. He can sound wistful, or lost, or agitated, or all of those things at once. He’s a boaster, but he rarely sounds arrogant.<br /><br />Atlanta has its own genealogy of stylists, which in the last few years has included the sly mumbler Gucci Mane and the lovelorn android Future. Young Thug owes a little to each of them but is most clearly influenced by what history will undoubtedly refer to as drug-era Lil Wayne. During that prime period — roughly the mid-late 2000s — Lil Wayne was practically melting on songs, his mind and his voice seeming to travel in different directions. Words came out mushy or incomplete, but with real sparkle nonetheless.<br /><br />This is Young Thug’s gift, to sound completely unsteady while being seriously focused. <br /><br />‘Black Portland’, his outstanding new mixtape with Bloody Jay, is the moment where his idiosyncrasies have hardened into a style identifiable and unique, and also indelible and broadly appealing.<br /><br />On ‘Black Portland’, Young Thug’s strangeness — which on earlier mixtapes like ‘1017 Thug’ and ‘I Came From Nothing 2’ could be grating, or at the least inconsistent is molded into something reliably beautiful. He is unmistakable, and he varies his presentation from song to song.<br /><br /> On Signs, he raps as if he’s angrily conducting an orchestra, or delivering a scolding TED talk. On Nothing But Some Pain, he delves into pure preacher cadences. And on Movin, he takes a break for a few measures rapped in a hilarious whisper flow.<br /><br />Gift of words<br /><br />But underneath all the presentation, Young Thug has a gift for words and off-kilter metaphor. She say she not with it, I see straight through her like linen he raps on the most aggressive number here (and one with an unprintable name); Money stand like eight feet just like two midgets, he wheezes on Danny Glover, which is becoming a genuine hit.<br /><br />As for Bloody Jay, he’s less of an obvious eccentric than Young Thug, but more energetic — especially in delivering booming hooks — and, in this context, useful in helping to present Young Thug not just as someone blindly following his muse, but as someone who plays well with others. The same is true of the recent remix of Wale’s Clappers, in which <br />Young Thug’s dreamy exultations serve as a soothing coda to the song’s literal desire.<br /><br />The way we learn about a song’s potency these days is by watching others lose their mind to it on Vine or Instagram. In this case of Young Thug’s Danny Glover, the eager fans were Drake, who was captured rapping along to it, and Kanye West, who was filmed dancing to it with a hood pulled low over his face. (Young Thug recently said that he and West had recorded some music together.)<br /><br />Implicit challenge<br /><br />At least a couple of rappers have risen to the implicit challenge Young Thug has issued. Most notable has been the chameleonic Nicki Minaj, who released her own bracing version of Danny Glover in which she did her best imitation of Young Thug’s decaying style.<br /><br />Other rappers tried their hand at delivering verses on Stoner, another recent Young Thug anthem, less successfully. But Nicki Minaj’s homage had legs, and heart. It was one signature stylist welcoming another to the club.<br /></p>