Over the last several years, Young Thug has become one of the most important rappers of this generation. From the Slime Season series to Barter 6 to his many phenomenal collaborations with popular and obscure pop, Latin, and EDM artists, Young Thug has always pushed the boundaries of what modern trap music should sound like. He takes influences from a variety of artists and musicians that most rappers would not be influenced by, and he ends up using melodies and vocal styles that are very off the wall and different. Unfortunately, though, the last couples years of music have been pretty stagnant for Thugger in my opinion. I do not think he has really released anything very boundary-pushing or unique since 2017’s Beautiful Thugger Girls, and even that album was pretty bland and cookie-cutter except for a few strange country rap songs. On his latest project, So Much Fun, Thugger is back to his old trendsetting ways, as it is the most diverse and boundary-pushing album that he has put out in years. Everything about this album, from all the strange vocal tones to the hard as hell instrumentals to all of the excellent features, is on point and just great. It is typically difficult to keep music listeners in this day and age engaged for a 19 song record(especially when it is trap music), but there is not one song on this album that sounds too redundant or bores me. So Much Fun will serve as an inspiration for up and coming artists for years to come, and it proves even more that Young Thug is one of the most important artists in his generation.
What’s up, mate? Got cheese, mate? Got cake, mate? Got bread, mate? Got cups, mate? No fucks, mate! Give no fucks, mate! I’m up, mate!
So Much Fun really does get off to a rip-roaring start and gets the attention of listeners immediately. After a somewhat low key and nice guitar-driven trap opener called ‘Just How It Is,’ the album launches into full speed ahead with the already viral banger ‘Sup Mate,’ which features a frequent Young Thug collaborator, Future. There are already multiple meme videos associated with this track, and I guarantee it will be one of the biggest songs on the record. The instrumental is a fairly basic but intense melodic trap joint, and it does a great job of staying low key and letting these two artists go off. The ad-libs on this song are just nuts; I will have the “Yeah Yeah” Young Thug ad-lib stuck in my head every day for months because of how catchy it is. The next song, ‘Ecstasy,’ is also already a huge fan favorite, although a lot of people are not huge fans of the Machine Gun Kelly verse that was randomly added to the song after the album came out. The instrumental on this one goes super hard; it features a super hard and distorted trap beat with ground shaking bass, and the melody is super simple and creepy sounding, almost sounding like something out of a cheesy horror movie. Young Thug glides over this instrumental so smoothly and provides some of his most interesting vocal tones of the album on this track. ‘Hot,’ the first track on this album that features YSL prodigy Gunna, is a favorite of mine so far. This song has an instrumental that reminds me a lot of early T.I. or Lil Wayne, with loud and triumphant horns providing a dope melody over a super hard trap beat. Gunna sounds so smooth on this track; a lot of times in the past I have found him kind of boring, but he has the perfect amount of mellow to contrast the high voice and weird energy of Young Thug on this track. It is a song that I feel like may get overlooked, so I am letting y’all know it is really fricken good.
My Rolls Royce is grey and I’ve been calling it Granny. I copped that Lamb truck and that bitch panoramic…
This bar about cars is from the chorus of ‘Mannequin Challenge,’ which features one of rap music’s new superstars, Juice Wrld. This is easily one of the hardest and most energetic songs on the whole album; the beat on this song goes so crazy, and the melody is trippy and distorted. The instrumental kind of reminds me of something that would have been on Rico Nasty’s Sugar Trap 2. The way the song is rapped is actually more similar to some of Rico’s more chaotic rap-metal music; Thugger and Juice are yelling all of their bars, and it gets the blood pumping in the best way. I really love this one. The album comes to a solid and smooth conclusion with Young Thug’s hit ‘The London,’ which was the first single off of this record and features Travis Scott. Interestingly enough, this track was actually produced by J. Cole; It is a lot more mellow and low key than what we are used to from Thugger, but is a very nice change of pace and conclusion to this overall crazy album. I do not know if I would actually like a whole album produced in this way with Young Thug rapping, but it sure serves as a nice buffer from the craziness of the rest of the album.
Young Thug’s So Much Fun is the most off the wall and experimental album that he has released in years. This album is full of strange instrumentals and super weird flows and vocal styles from Thugger; once again he has shown why he is one of the most creative and boundary pushing artists making hip hop music today. So Much Fun is full of so many great features; whoever officially put all of these songs together and chose which artists which feature on which songs did an excellent job. This is definitely one of my favorite albums of the year so far; I can only think of one or two that I may enjoy a bit more. Listen to Young Thug’s So Much Fun and see what all of the hype is about for yourself by clicking the Spotify link below!
https://open.spotify.com/album/1bnHPO4dKK7IjvgrtVBcQh?si=L4GRtGTaTuWb4GJxOZv3bg
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