Two weeks before the arrival of UY Scuti, Young Thug’s first release since he took a plea deal from state prosecutors for his involvement in the YSL racketeering case, he dropped “Miss My Dogs.” It’s a meandering and wounded apology to the sundry friends and industry associates that he criticized during a series of leaked phone conversations he made while still in jail; as well as his current girlfriend, R&B star Mariah the Scientist, whom he admitted to cheating on. The music, produced by London on Da Track – a longtime Thug collaborator who helmed the Rich Gang classic “Lifestyle” as well as Ariana Grande’s Billboard chart-topper “Positions” – and BeatsByJuko, sounds like airy arena-pop, with orchestral keyboards swells and Thug’s soaring voice in the background. “Baby, I’m sorry/One of my biggest fears is losing you to the internet,” he raps in his familiar melodic voice, as he addresses Mariah. “Pillow talkin’ ain’t my game.”
There are numerous moments on UY Scuti just like “Miss My Dogs.” (Old heads will note the irony of the latter title, which evokes Lil Wayne’s 2004 classic “I Miss My Dawgs.” Thug famously claimed Wayne as his “idol” before engaging in a years-long dispute with him. The two publicly squashed their beef last year.) The album is a hot mess of conflicted emotions, empty braggadocio, poor technique, and heartbreaking yet tiresome crying jags. Sometimes, it feels like being cornered on a bar stool with a guy who won’t shut up about his divorces, his addictions, or the years he spent in lockup. Too often, Thug fails to transform his innate sadness and dogged ambition into compelling art and leaves the listener struggling to comprehend his spilled feelings. One can’t help but think of Chrissie Hynde on The Pretenders’ “Private Life”: Your private life drama, baby, leave me out.
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Yet “Miss My Dogs,” despite its seven-minute length, works on its own. It’s a concise depiction of how Thug has been traumatized by spending years in prison on trumped-up RICO charges that the Fulton County prosecutor’s office ultimately couldn’t prove, leaving them to cut Thug loose and save face from one of the longest and most costly criminal trials in state history. In inhumanly pressurized situations like that, who can blame him for venting angrily about any and every person he knows? On the track, he tries to make amends to Drake (“Drizzy, you my brother”), and hopes Drake can reconcile with Metro Boomin and Future a.k.a. “Pluto,” after last year’s infamous “Like That” diss. He apologizes to Lil Baby a.k.a. “Wham,” 21 Savage, and Gucci Mane. But the overall impression isn’t of a rapper vainly trying to walk back the leaked calls that led fans to call him a “snitch,” but of a 34-year-old Black man unsure of how to feel and think after being imprisoned at the height of his career. “Made some mistakes, now the game tryna ban me,” he raps.
If Young Thug was a more self-conscious artist, he would have recognized the power of “Miss My Dogs,” canceled the release of UY Scuti, and restructured his long-anticipated comeback so that it buttressed and extended its complexities. Alas, the beauty and folly of Young Thug is that he’s wildly untethered by expectations of how he should sound and dress. When he emerged in the early 2010s with “Stoner” and “Danny Glover aka 2 Bitches,” he spun croaked melodies with childlike whimsy as pure as Tom Hanks dancing on the oversized keyboard in Big. Alt-pop aesthetes were fascinated by his whirling dervish performance alongside Popcaan on Jamie xx’s “I Know There’s Gonna Be (Good Times).”
Young Thug is the purest exponent of mainstream rap’s melodic rap era. He can’t be bothered to constrain himself into ad-hoc concepts of heavily medicated pain and pleasure like Future, strive for emo-rock stardom like Lil Uzi Vert, or gesture towards Black consciousness like Lil Baby’s “The Bigger Picture.” He simply churns out tracks and collates them into bloated and messily conceived projects, some inspiring (2017’s Beautiful Thugger Girls, 2019’s So Much Fun) and others exhausting (the YSL Slime Language comps, 2023’s Business Is Business), as well as too many studio leaks unleashed via message board accounts. Meanwhile, the regional-rap enthusiasts initially dazzled by early gems like 2014’s Rich Gang project Tha Tour Part 1 and 2015’s Barter 6 eventually fussed over the quality of his work. One can ask if the folks who once wildly overpraised Thug, only to turn on him when his sound grew into a pop staple, truly valued him as an artist or simply adored him as a shiny new plaything they could eventually cast aside. Young Thug is a human being, not an ATL action figure programmed to run the streets, buck at the opps, and get bitches to ride his dick, all while singing the blues.
Part of the frustration of UY Scuti is hearing him and his “twins” crank out more product as if nothing ever happened, trying to pump fresh life into the same old tropes. “Hundred percent of the business going to the kids (heyyy)/Mansions to the wifey, nigga/Lifetime wigs (lifetime, baby!)” he sings on “RIP Big & Mack” as he dreams of making “billions” and “trillions.” Guest T.I. expresses his disgust at how “the feds” target rappers like Thug and himself: “We’re shakin’ it off and packin’ it down, nigga. Fuck off!” 21 Savage, Travis Scott, Lil Baby, Sexxy Red, Quavo, and Future also show up and pay homage. The 21-track collection is poorly sequenced, with halfway decent cuts (“On the News” with Cardi B) carelessly paired with desultory rage-rap bait (“Yuck” with Ken Carson). It’s all packaged in a bizarre cover that inexplicably illuminates Thug’s skin, so he looks pale and whitened. The artwork, Thug has said, is a comment on how Black artists need to bleach their skin and “go white” to be successful. Couple that with the opening track, “Ninja,” where he decides to call his opps the hard-R N-word, then says the slur repeatedly. Ha ha?
Perhaps UY Scuti would be better if Thug realized what’s at stake. Or maybe the problem is that he knows his A-list status is in question, but he’s too broken by the experience of being incarcerated to properly address it. There are innumerable moments where Thug sounds as if he’s sobbing. “Do you know how it feels to see your face on the news,” he sings mournfully on “On the News.” “I’ve been crying all day/I seen my brother turn rat right in my face,” he says on “Sad Spider,” with Gunna as “the rat” in question. It’s unfortunate that Young Thug doesn’t believe in professional therapy and relies on advice from family and friends instead. He surely needs it.
But as distressing as UY Scuti can be over its 75-minute runtime, it ends with two tracks that feel like saving graces. First, there’s Mariah the Scientist warmly declaring her love for Thug on “Rarely Do Dreams Come True.” “I’m thinking I’m submissive when I’m just succumbing,” she sings. Then Thug responds in an echoing voice, as if he’s lost in a daze, “Fuck my friends, fuck all my friends…tell me if you love me right now.” Then comes the finale in “Miss My Dogs.” Every human being deserves empathy and understanding, especially one as flawed and broken yet persevering as Young Thug.
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