Once again, Slime Season is upon us.
Prior to release, the hype meter for Young Thug’s Slime Season 3 was about as high as Thug himself proclaims to be on a daily basis. During the chaotic spectacular that was the Yeezy Season 3 premiere at Madison Square Garden, Kanye West took a break from his own music and took a page from any party DJ’s book. He played (and premiered) the newest, most absolutely flame Young Thug track. As if a Yeezy promo weren’t enough, Thug had some pals of his carry a casket painted in bold red with the mixtape’s March 25 release date through the streets of SXSW. For the Thug haters, an increasingly dwindling group, the casket symbolizes their fear that Thug’s music will leave the genre dead in the ground. For most, however, it was a holy proclamation: Hip-hop’s most bizarre superstar is back again to unleash a mixtape that doubles as a murderous firestorm of biblical proportions.
With a 28-minute runtime over the course of eight tracks, it seems Thug (or maybe his handlers) have finally found a way to edit a Slime Season to just the essential bangers. There might only be eight tracks, but each is one you’ll want to hear, as opposed to the usual Slime Season approach in which Thug throws out 18 to 22 tracks and makes you sift through the madness to find the newest additions to your playlist.
The album begins with the scorching “With Them,” the aforementioned track premiered at MSG during the Yeezy Season 3 event. Produced by Mike WiLL Made-It and Resource, “With Them” is Thug at his absolute best: unconventionally flowing and ad-libbing lyrics that would sound absurdly ridiculous coming out of anyone else’s mouth. “She suck on that dick on the plane and I just called her airhead/ I just went hunting; I found me a rabbit; I picked out the carrots” isn’t exactly Kendrick Lamar-level lyricism, but it is aux-cord poetry, the transformative agent that turns your daily commute into a Project X-style turn-up. London On Da Track, who is to Thug what Metro Boomin is to Future, provides gorgeously bumping production on tracks such as “Memo” and “Digits,” in which Thug laments, “When you die somebody else was born/ But at least we got to say we …/ We ran up them digits; we ran up that money.” Whether you’re hot or cold on Thug, you simply cannot deny that the man is stacking his commas and f’ing them up in every positive way possible.
The mixtape has few low moments. There isn’t an identifiable dud track, but it could’ve been lifted through the proverbial roof with a couple of heavy-hitting features. Instead, Thug’s only features come on the fourth track, “Slime Shit.” While Yak Gotti, Duke and Peewee Roscoe each do their respective thing, they aren’t exactly the eye-popping names mainstream fans wish to see. It’s not as though Thug doesn’t have the capability to bring in rap’s upper echelon, as Kanye seems to have reached the point of having a certified man crush on him. However, Thug’s lack of features is also a testament to his ability to independently carry the weight of an entire album, as he himself has reached hip-hop royalty status and needs not share the crown with any of his counterparts.
Slime Season 3 is Thug at the peak of his craft, supplying the bangers his listeners yearn for and eliminating bullet points on the list of potential criticisms. No, it’s not lyrical genius, and please don’t try to overanalyze any of the content. You’ll never find more question marks in a Genius lyric entry than the amount that exist within any given Thug track, but that’s the beauty of Thugger. We don’t always know what he’s saying; hell, he probably doesn’t either. But we know it feels fucking awesome and makes us (well, maybe just me) want to drop our lives, move to Atlanta, dye our hair to look like popcorn and live off a strict diet of Hot Fries (as mentioned in this GQ article.) Whether a fan or not, approach Thug’s newest work with an open mind. Make like the Nickelodeon programming of our childhood and immerse yourself in the slime.
