YOUNG THUG vs FUTURE

either way if this is the only rap music u listen to F.U. imo

― Listen to my homeboy Fantano (D-40), Monday, November 2, 2015 11:59 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i find it hard to believe there are people who would dig future + young thug but not listen to other rap music?

there aren't, that claim is straight deejery.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WWJI_zeDK0Q

gtfowtbs

there are definitely ppl on twitter & ilx for whom this is the bulk of / 90% of their rap listening in 2015

nah i still can't find much to love in the older mixtapes, the new ones are a huge step up

SS1 has terrific use of pianos

― lex pretend, Tuesday, November 3, 2015 11:26 AM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

they're really not a huge step up from the rich gang tape you're just having trouble backtracking entirely

xp oh im so sorry i forgot about fetty wap, there's your 90%

hip hop partisanship is such a balkanized and paranoid stance, cannot imagine a country fan being "oh so you mostly listen to zac brown and dierks bentley and jason isbell; LAME your opinion doesn't matter"

voted future btw

2015 is one of the few years in recent memory where most of the music that's been the most talked about and widely listened to is also some of the best: Future, Thug, Kendrick, Fetty Wap, even Chance and Donnie Trumpet.

So with all due respect, IF you're going to fill your 90% rap quota with only two artists you could do a lot worse than Future and Thug, two of the most important rappers of this era, arguably at the top of their powers, who, between the two of them, have released 8 good to great projects within the past 12 months.

And I do know you're always ahead of every other rap listener ever, deej, and that sometimes makes it difficult to argue with you, but Power is still a better song than any of Mozzy's.
And I do like Mozzy.

yeah imo future and thug have released the bulk of / 90% of the best rap in 2015

but part of that is just the odds given that they both release a lot more music than, say, earl or kendrick or nef the pharaoh

fetty wap is not a rapper

2015 is one of the few years in recent memory where most of the music that's been the most talked about and widely listened to is also some of the best

earl's album = the other 10%

2015 is one of the few years in recent memory where most of the music that's been the most talked about and widely listened to is also some of the best: Future, Thug, Kendrick, Fetty Wap, even Chance and Donnie Trumpet.

don't think this is true, there's still amazing stuff that mysteriously gets shut out of the discussion entirely (ANGEL HAZE)

also not to bang on about this yet again but do people ever have any self-awareness about the lack of female artists when they reel off lists of men like that

I wish I could love Angel Haze like you do, Lex. I also wish there were more female artists making rap music that I'd consider for a list like that. I mean, there are good songs here and there, but your enthusiasm for these projects seems a little bit over the top at times.

i have no idea how anyone can hear angel haze and not realise what a special, one-off talent they are

anyway i feel everyone's enthusiasm for young thug is still over the top so

Oh I'm not questioning her talent. Just her ability to make music I have any use for right now.

feels kind of reductive to reduce music - esp music as personal and confessional as haze's - to such a purely utilitarian use, what makes young thug's music "useful" to you in a way that angel haze's is not?

If I didn't enjoy Barter 6 is there any point my investigating the others? Predictably I like Thug as a presence but very few of his production choices.

Also the thing is - why do these guys release so much music? I get that there's mad demand right now but when you're releasing 50-60 tracks per year, are all of them actually worth releasing? Like how high is the quality control really? Why not just release one amazing mixtape with all the best stuff on it.

I think there are really obvious reasons why the Angel Haze album is making an emotional connection with people but also reasons why it might be an intimidating edifice and not functionally particularly useful. Also the fact that she essentially self-sabotaged her major album release suggests that there's minimal PR effort going into the new one.

OTOH if a reasonably-established male rapper had released some of those tracks (especially Impossible) you wouldn't be able to move for fawning thinkpieces.

maybe I'm in the minority here but i prefer Thug when he's unhinged and working in a maximalist setting (like on 'Treasure') as opposed to the more subdued stuff on Barter 6. Future seems to have gone this way too in the last few releases, but I think it suits him better. What are the SS albums like? I've been away from the music net of late and haven't had a chance to check em out.

but Power is still a better song than any of Mozzy's.
And I do like Mozzy.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 1:34 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I don't agree, but "power" is at best the 34th best song he's dropped in the past year. I'd take Mozzy's "baldheaded" or "chop stixx" over it in a second

But that's not the point I'm not trying to make it about mozzy vs thug, obv thug is arguably the best rapper out rn but I do pretty strongly disagree w the idea that thug and future are the only rappers making music worth hearing right now (wait I thought everyone listened to other rap music...but now it's ok that no one listens to other rap music bc they're the only ones who matter? Stick to your goalposts)

This is what I hate about the conversation, it's like you're in camp j Cole or camp
Future and there's no in between...there's actually tons of dope rap happening that is not future or young thug

you don't say

feels kind of reductive to reduce music - esp music as personal and confessional as haze's - to such a purely utilitarian use, what makes young thug's music "useful" to you in a way that angel haze's is not?

― lex pretend, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 9:45 AM (51 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I think you know what I'm talking about here, Lex. Some music is pleasant or challenging in interesting ways and after a while you find an urge to try to explore just exactly what it is about it that appeals to you - that's useful to me. Or there's music that just sounds good in a car or in a club or on the radio. That's useful too. Angel Haze just exhausts me though. I can appreciate that she's angry and confrontational and raps hard but her songs just mean nothing to me. There's virtually no situation in which I think hey, let's put on some Angel Haze, that's exactly what I need right now.

@deej

I think it's more about how a lot of the people who listen to a lot of rap music agree that future and thug are the ones they keep coming back to.
Which shouldn't be a problem unless you're trying to pitch a story about Kodak Black to some publication and no one wants it because the conversation is still about Young Thug and Future.

we're talking about future vs thug in this thread because they're two stylistically comparable hype-rofilc rappers of 2015. of course there are other rappers.

odd that because in terms of meaningfulness of lyrical content - which i know is not the be all and end all - angel haze is miles ahead of most other artists. back to the woods is about an intense relationship and break-up, mental health and an uncontrollable brain, the legacy of a traumatic upbringing, institutional racism, the ways in which religion and family fuck you up...there is a lot in there to identify with, or to appreciate even if you don't. they're telling their story in a way few other rappers are right now.

there's actually a lot of mileage for a comparison between back to the woods and ds2 as portraits of a post-break-up mind; both are underpinned by a kind of tunnel-vision self-destructive bitter nihilism.

for me, thug doesn't have any of that, what i like on SS1 and "pacifier" is purely beats n hooks rather than me caring about his persona particularly

Which shouldn't be a problem unless you're trying to pitch a story about Kodak Black to some publication and no one wants it because the conversation is still about Young Thug and Future.

this pretty much is a problem, across all genres tho

I know, but it's been that way for a while. And at least now you can write about Future and Young Thug without editors thinking you're nuts.

Btw Lex you should probably pitch the DS2/BBTW comparison piece to someone. It just might work, lol.

lex the last half of barter vi is full of personally intense shit...

I think it's more about how a lot of the people who listen to a lot of rap music agree that future and thug are the ones they keep coming back to.

― human and working on getting beer (longneck), Wednesday, November 4, 2015 4:50 AM (14 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this year they're ones w/ a lot of visibility...

meaningful lyrical content doesn't make good music.

i didn't say it did

If I didn't enjoy Barter 6 is there any point my investigating the others?

yes, the people who portray it as his masterpiece are tripping

goddamn these threads are depressing as everybody works through the same script they have a thousand times before. deej comes out of nowhere telling people they're underrating chief keef, lex comes out of nowhere telling people they're underrating angel haze, etc etc.

plus, you guys are forgetting drake

i find this conversation to be pretty unhelpful but i guess personally future can get very one-note for me whereas young thug is kaleidoscopic even as his projects have gotten tonally consistent

the highs on future's records are very very high but overall his tapes can get a bit grayscale to me

seems like Future is kinda deliberately narrowing his sound at the moment, you kind of have to look to the DS2 bonus tracks or "News Or Something" to really get the kind of variety that was baked into Pluto and Honest.

Yeah I made a couple of half-hearted attempts to get into DS2 and it felt like his sound was coalescing around exactly the parts of his discography that I'd previously found the least compelling.

yeah "news or something" and "percocet & stripper joint" are two of my fav songs of his this year

same here

i guess ultimately my fav dozen future songs from across his tapes that i listen to all the time are easily in the very upper echelon of 2015 rap but i'm looking at DS2 right now and songs like "groupies" "lil one" "slave master" "blow a bag" etc i'm not really trying to put in rotation

Matt DC - on the Future thread a bunch of heads made some great personalised playlists of the best stuff from his last albums and when presented like that, the highs are really high and it's really listenable but I'd agree it can get a bit too much of a slog when you're presented with like 5 albums of mixed material

theres a bigger quantity of thugger stuff from this yr in my rotation, but the best future stuff I personally enjoy more. yeah agree abt DS2 having a lot of chafe fwiw

plus, you guys are forgetting drake
― J0rdan S.

"groupies" "lil one" "slave master" "blow a bag"

Three out of four of these songs are incredible (sorry "Slave Master")

1) thug and future have put out a lot of really good rap in the past 12 months but they are obviously just two rappers in a huge genre and there is a ton of other good rap, i would never argue otherwise, i don't really think anyone is arguing that too fwiw
2) i am listening to more rap this year than i ever have but even if i am deep into a genre i always assume i am probably only getting at like 3% of it, maybe 10% at best.
3) if you like future & thug, i imagine that you also listen to other rap besides these two. they are not, like, idk kanye or some major crossover or token rappers. i mean of all the rappers that are prob the only rappers people listen to i would probably not put thug and future in that list. that said i am not active on rap twitter. wrt ILX i would not assume just bc someone is not posting a lot about other rappers (or any musician) that they are not listening to other rappers/musicians
4) AND even if you don't listen to other rap who gives a fuck? at all???? unless you a music critic and it is your job to report on and listen to all kinds of shit who gives a fuck? there is absolutely nothing wrong in any way in going all in deep w/ a few artists (unless you are idk making stupid sweeping claims that your listening represents all that is good about a genre/scene). in 2014 i basically listened to nothing but reggae, electric miles, and joni mitchell and it was one of the most rewarding years of music listening for me. this year i am listening to huge variety of all kinds of shit and it is also super rewarding but also a ton of work tbh, it takes time to read about new artists and listen to new stuff, especially when like i am not a music critic and i have full-time job and two kids and a partner.
6) angel haze is not getting completely ignored, there was like a major fader feature on them recently iirc

i think "slave master" is great but yea groupies and lil one are tedious and i always skip them. ds2 in general sags a lot in the middle

*27. still tho!

futurism

Chief Keef really did belong in the conversation at this time lol . faneto was only a year old when the thread started

i like the adlib abt his struggles w data backup

― lag∞n, Wednesday, November 4, 2015 12:38 PM (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

Ok so astronaut status is 10 today lol

I find it weird that Mask Off still hasn't become a major pandemic hit.

future say shit like "your racks will neva b honorable" i really fuck wit dude music alot

— thebe kgositsile (@earlxsweat) December 25, 2021