The Trouble-featuring “Thief in the Night”, “Hey, I”, the Rich Homie Quan team-up “Never Made Love”, and “Raw (Might Just)” are smooth, controlled songs that make earlier Thug tracks like 1017 Thug’s Spanglish spaz-out “2 Cups Stuffed” and the equally unhinged “Picacho” seem worlds behind. On its most memorable songs, SS2 recaptures some of the melodic magic that made Rich Gang’s “Lifestyle” the biggest song Thug has to his name. Here, over production from the likes of Southside, London on da Track, Metro Boomin, and Wheezy, Thug alternates between thunderous trap rap and airy hip-pop, a collection of beats that are appropriately spacious and balanced for him to be both comfortable and chameleonic. That happened when he, Rich Homie Quan, and Birdman worked extensively with London on da Track for Rich Gang’s Tha Tour Part 1, and it’s continued with each of Thug’s three 2015 solo releases: April’s Barter 6, September’s Slime Season, and now SS2, released on Halloween. He would have a fully formed aesthetic, the argument went, if he could develop closer relationships with producers ready to pre-adjust to his eccentric style. On Thug’s first mixtapes, there was a gap between his inventiveness as a vocalist and the simplicity of the beats underneath him. Where the first group praises his hooks, which can catch in your brain when you least expect them, the second says those pieces only stick after enough listens, and can’t that be said about most music? Fortunately, SS2 offers Thug’s peculiarities in streamlined form, making it easier for both camps to admire his strengths. It’s that constant gear-shifting that keeps his defenders defensive and gives fuel to his naysayers. Using his voice as an instrument (or instruments), he switches his flow so often you never know whether he’s about to swan dive into a beat’s pocket or explode in an entirely unpredictable direction. In essence, Thug keeps the term “ATLien” updated for the molly generation. Slime Season 2 is Young Thug toned down, and for skeptics who are still keeping up with the Atlanta rapper in hopes that they’ll eventually “get” him, that’s a good thing.
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