Why Stats Don’t Quantify Young Thug’s Legacy
As Young Thug’s new album Punk continues to get spun in earbuds across the country, the Atlanta rapper opens a new chapter in his career. As one of the pioneers of modern-day Hip-Hop, Young Thug’s career is one comparable to NBA future Hall of Famer Draymond Green’s. In other words, the impact of their careers can’t be measured by numbers, however, if you look at the current playing field it’s hard to ignore their influence.
Punk serves as Young Thug’s second studio album, which within itself is amazing because of how long Thugger has been an innovative force within Hip-Hop. Punk has an argument for being the most experimental project in Thugger’s discography, once again providing another reference point for his experimental nature. The execution of a trap album with elements of folk music mixed in shown on tracks like ‘Insure My Wrist’ featuring Gunna and ‘Hate The Game’ is a feat only a few artists in the world can accomplish. Additionally, when you add in tracks like ‘Livin It Up’ featuring Post Malone & A$AP Rocky and ‘Love You More’ featuring Nate Ruess, Jeff Bhasker, & Gunna that serve as a complete exit from the Trap genre altogether, Punk is a chef’s kiss of experimentation.
However, there have always been questions about why Young Thug isn’t more impactful on the analytical side of the music business. So Much Fun sold 113,000 units in its first week and Punk has officially sold 90,000 in its first week of circulation. Young Thug’s legend status makes these numbers low, however, they’ll prove to be the biggest solo numbers of Young Thug’s legendary career, which can be puzzling.
Perhaps the low numbers are not as puzzling when considering the amount of experimenting Young Thug has done throughout his mixtape career. After all, when he first arrived on the national scene Young Thug was in the epicenter of Hip-Hop’s generation gap as his style of rapping was the cause of outrage to many of Hip-Hop’s oldheads at the time. Thug’s lack of consistent cadence from verse to verse, at times starting lines rapping and finishing them with dragging out the final syllables, spawned the disapproval of many oldheads while earning the admiration of the generation that would follow in Thugger’s footsteps.
In 2017, Young Thug released the most experimental project of his career to that point, Beautiful Thugger Girls providing a glimpse into what a country trap album would sound like. While the project’s numbers were underwhelming, selling 37,000 in the first week, earning Young Thug the eighth spot on the Billboard 200, the project was executed well with tracks like ‘Family Don’t Matter’ featuring Millie Go Lightly, and ‘Relationship’ featuring Future being some of my favorites.
With this understanding of the lengths Young Thug has gone to push his sound and the reality of what Hip-Hop can be through his experimental nature, it’s easier to understand why Young Thug has done consistently low numbers. His sound only had one consistency and it was the fact that it wasn’t going to sound like anything else he put out before.
The lack of sonic consistency is something that created a cult fanbase of Young Thug fans who will gladly open their minds to the latest concept the Atlanta rapper has put on a record. However, the lack of consistency would be enough to alienate borderline fans who may have expected Thugger’s projects to sound like fifteen versions of ‘Lifestyle’ back to back. One thing that helps to endear an artist to casual fans is consistently delivering on the expectation of what their music would sound like. The idea that fans will hear another version of their favorite track from a specific artist is what helps each artist keep the gravitational pull they have with their fanbase. However, that’s not Young Thug and from a numbers perspective, his career has suffered.
On the other hand, the reason why Young Thug has already earned legend status at the age of 30 years old is the number of seeds he’s planted throughout his career. There simply isn’t a Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Baby, or Gunna without Young Thug’s influence and quest to push the boundaries of what Hip-Hop could be. The fact that Thugger simply exists would probably have been enough to spawn the creation of the artists I mentioned, but then for Thug to also have a direct influence in each of their careers, becoming really good friends with Lil Uzi, signing Gunna to his label, and going as far as to pay Lil Baby to continue working on his craft in the studio. That’s something only legendary artists do.
Branching out with his label Young Stoner Life, Young Thug has a chance to further cement his status as one of the most impactful rappers of this generation. Young Thug has a team of young artists like Gunna, Lil Keed, Wheezy, and others to help find their place in Hip-Hop through his mentorship. With Slime Language 2 being a massive success, putting the talents of all the YSL artists on display, perhaps Young Thug’s mixtape era isn’t the true start of his career. Perhaps Thugger’s mixtapes serve as a demo and this era of his career featuring studio albums and leading the next generation to superstardom is the real legacy Thug will be known for.
