OK. Wow. Lot going on here. Young Thug is one of this century's most important rappers, but he's been going through some things lately. Last year, Thug was freed from jail after an extremely long RICO trial that had tons of consequences. After the longest trial in Georgia history, Thug accepted a plea deal that'll keep him on probation for 15 years, mostly barred from his Atlanta hometown during that time. Thug didn't release much music after he was freed, though he announced plans for a new album called UY Scuti, named for a red supergiant that maybe the largest star in the known universe. That album is out today, but its release is a complicated affair.
In the past few months, Young Thug has been plagued by an endless series of audio leaks -- not songs, but voice recordings from when he was in jail. There's a long jailhouse interrogation that many people have taken as Thug snitching on his co-defendants, and there's a long series of phone calls in which Thug seemingly talks gossipy shit about virtually all of his peers and allies and admits to cheating on singer Mariah The Scientist, who now seems to be his ex-girlfriend. Earlier this month, Thug shared "Miss My Dogs," a song where he apologizes to Mariah, Drake, Lil Baby, Future, 21 Savage, Gucci Mane, and his own family. On the new album "Miss My Dogs" is the last song. That stuff all hangs heavily over the release of UY Scuti, which does not feel like the triumphant homecoming that it was supposed to be.
Even without all those leaks, this album's arrival would be profoundly messy. There is, first of all, that cover. What is that? It makes for a discomfiting pairing with opening track "Ninja," which seems to start out with a sample of a prosecutor describing Thug as a monster. That song ends with Thug using the N-word, with the hard R, over and over. What follows is about an hour of autopilot trap music, with occasional forays into baffling, numbing absurdity, like the endless Wham!-sampling excusion "Whoopty Doo," which made me feel like I was having a stroke.
On the surface, UY Scuti is a pretty normal big-name rap album full of guests. The previously released Future collab "Money On Money" appears, and we get multiple love songs, including two with Mariah The Scientist. Guests include Cardi B, Lil Baby, 21 Savage, and Sexyy Red. Travis Scott, Ken Carson, and T.I. all appeared at Thug's comeback concert, and they're all on the album. But UY Scuti mostly sounds like a desperate flail. Thug has made plenty of strange artistic decisions in the past, and most of them have led to absolutely electric music. Even at its most out-there, UY Scuti sounds lost. I've only heard it straight-through once, and maybe some of these tracks will grow on me. But right now, this whole thing feels truly unfortunate. Stream it for yourself below.
UY Scuti is out now on Young Stoner Life/300 Entertainment/Atlantic.
