Page 24 - Provoke Mag Vol6

ing album, Carter VI, as an homage to idol Lil Wayne. Much the way Thug reacted to remixes of “Stoner,” Wayne wasn’t impressed with the title choice. After calling him out in concert, Wayne sued Thug to change the album name. It was amended to Hy!£UN35, or HiTunes. Partly because of this, Thug became involved in the Birdman/ Wayne beef. In 2015, he was even charged in a Bloods-re- lated shooting on Wayne’s car.
Around this time, a huge data breach leaked hundreds of Thug’s tracks to the public. To cover up the damage, he released the mixtapes “Slime Season,” “Slime Season 2” and in 2016, “Slime Season 3.” Thug also began to dis- tance himself from the mass-music industry, refusing re- cord deals with Future and Birdman’s respective labels. A number of other critically received collabs and mixtapes followed at a breakneck pace, including “I’m Up,” “Jef- fery” and “Super Slimey” with Future. Ironically, Thug’s first number one single came from a collaboration with Camila Cabello, “Havana.” It was the kind of uncom- plicated, glitzy single he was leaving the industry to get away from. Most recently, Thug received a Grammy for
his songwriting and support vocals on “This is Amer- ica.”
Besides music, the 27-year old has six kids from four women. He has been an outspoken fashion influencer, walking in Calvin Klein’s 2016 campaign. Apparently, since age 12 he has dressed in women’s clothes as “he understood women’s fashion better than men’s fashion.” He brings this unusual sense of style to the stage, where he sometimes performs in dresses. On the cover of “Jef- fery,” Thug wears a kid-sized dress like a top.
Thug has even gone to claim he is homosexual, ag- itating a lot of the rap community, but hasn’t let the negativity bother him. Actually, this curious charisma has probably kept Thug relevant: nobody else in the in- dustry sounds, thinks or acts quite like him. He isn’t bound by the rules and demands of megastars with their megadeals. He does what he wants, both in the studio and outside. Thug’s curious mumbling, masking a minefield of nuanced similes and references encrypt- ed by slang, is so unpredictable it points to a mind con- stantly in motion. And rap will always have a place for brilliant minds.
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