Atlanta rapper, eccentric fashion icon, and status quo-challenging
Young Thug broke through in the early 2010s with a string of successful trap mixtapes, including the
Slime Season series and U.S. Top Ten albums
Jeffery (2016) and
Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017). With his recognizable delivery and vocalizations, he has also guested on dozens of collaborations, notably the U.S. number one hit "Havana" with
Camila Cabello and "Heatstroke" with
Calvin Harris,
Pharrell Williams, and
Ariana Grande.
Born Jeffery Williams,
Thug mixed the radio-worthy weirdness of rappers like
Waka Flocka Flame with the hooky underground anthem sound of artists like
Chief Keef. With his distinctive rapping style -- which, at times, was almost unintelligible -- and preference for wearing women's clothing,
Thugger flouted hip-hop convention while defying gender and sexuality stereotypes. He released three volumes of his mixtape series I Came from Nothing before joining
Gucci Mane's 1017 Brick Squad crew in late 2012. His mixtape 1017 Thug followed in early 2013, featuring the quirky street single "Picacho." Later in the year, his "Stoner" single appeared, but it didn't catch fire until 2014, when an authorized remix featuring
Wale opened the floodgates for a series of unauthorized remixes from artists like
Jim Jones,
Iamsu!, and
Trick Trick. The original track peaked that April and was eventually certified gold by the RIAA.
That same year,
Thug signed to 300 Entertainment, the Atlantic-distributed imprint co-founded by Lyor Cohen and
Kevin Liles, and continued recording mixtapes. His first release for the label, 2015's
Barter 6, climbed up to number 22 on the Billboard 200 album chart. In 2016, he released
I'm Up, the first of many mixtapes that year, which debuted at the very same position as
Barter. Months later, he dropped the Top Ten hit
Slime Season 3. Before his next release, he was awarded a platinum certification for his 2015 track "Best Friend." At the end of the summer, he unexpectedly issued his third tape, originally titled No, My Name Is Jeffery (changed a week later to simply
JEFFERY). With its provocative cover art and concept (each track was named after one of
Thug's idols),
JEFFERY featured reggae/dub flourishes and appearances by
Migos'
Offset and
Quavo,
Gucci Mane,
Travi$ Scott, and
Wyclef Jean. As fans waited for
Young Thug's next project, a new song, "Best Thing of All Time," leaked near the end of March 2017; however, the track turned out to be absent on
Thug's next album.
Veering unexpectedly into new sonic territory,
Beautiful Thugger Girls arrived in the summer of 2017. Though it flirted with country and pop, the set retained
Thug's trademark weirdness at the fore. In 2017,
Thug issued a pair of collaborations, first with Guatemalan-American producer
Carnage on the Young Martha EP, which saw release later that fall, and then with
Future on the mixtape
Super Slimey. The single "Ride on Me," featuring
A-Trak, arrived in early 2018 ahead of the release of the Hear No Evil EP, which was issued later that April. Months later, he issued the Young Stoner Life Records compilation Slime Language, which featured appearances by
Lil Duke,
Gunna,
Lil Uzi Vert, and more. The next month,
Thug issued his third EP,
On the Rvn. Debuting in the Top 20 of both the Billboard 200 and the R&B/hip-hop charts, the short set featured guests
6LACK,
Jaden Smith, and
Elton John, who gave
Thug his seal of approval on the "Rocket Man"-sampling "High."
Thug's first output in 2019 arrived in the form of an all-star collaboration with
J. Cole and
Travis Scott titled "The London." The single was featured on his proper debut album,
So Much Fun, which followed in August and topped the Billboard 200. "The London" was also nominated for Best Rap/Sung Performance in the 62nd Grammy Awards. ~ David Jeffries