Uy Scuti review: half-baked and not weird enough”>
Young Thug. Photo by Garfield Larmond
In 2019 Young Thug gave me his definition of “real rap” as we sat in a hotel suite in Brussels at one or two in the morning. Real rap, Thugger said, was “letting people in, letting people know what you go through. Let them know that you the same.” Contrast that with his reasoning for wearing a mask during an interview with GQ to discuss Uy Scuti, his new album named for a distant star. “I don’t feel like people should see me… I just feel like I’m out of this world.”
This contradiction is nothing new in rap, and its legends are the ones who are able to reconcile the human heart and the alien ambition without undermining either dimension. Thug is indisputably one of hip-hop’s legends, but the magic he’s displayed in the past only appears in fits and starts on Uy Scuti. It’s an album that’s caught in its own head, for better or worse.
Discussions of “realness” and hip-hop weigh heavily on Thug these days. From May 2022, he spent two-and-a-half years of his life in jail on trial in Atlanta for the RICO case that swept up his crew, YSL, painted by the prosecution as a deadly street gang roaming the capital. Some defendants, like his close friend and collaborator Gunna, took plea bargains and many onlookers, including Thug, painted them as rats for it. But Thug endured. Against all odds, the case fell apart and he was released in October 2024 on a deal that included 15 years probation and restrictions on returning to Atlanta. Since then, he’s only released new songs sparingly and to little fanfare. What got the biggest attention was the trove of jailhouse discussions between Thug and investigators, leaked mere weeks before Uy Scuti’s release. Soon, he was the one being labeled only a rat but a hypocrite in the eyes of the rap internet.
This sort of debate was new, uneasy footing for Thug after a year spent provoking every tenant of hip-hop expression, from fashion to flow. As commenters gossiped about his sexuality, he wore a dress on the cover of his 2016 mixtape Jeffrey and paid tribute to Prince after his passing. When his lacey, impressionistic delivery was accused of corrupting rap, he made Barter 6. Thug has thrived as an underdog, but being accused of snitching has not inspired a similar wellspring of creativity.
Like too many major label rap releases, there’s little holding these 21 tracks together. Unlike most, though, you can see the skeleton of what could have been: a tribute to the music of Atlanta, the city Thug helped define in which he can no longer roam freely. Most of the songs are produced by Thug’s day-one producers like London On Da Track, Southside, and Wheezy; there are moments when Thug gets his old flows back, and it sounds glorious: “Whaddup Jesus,” a collaboration with his onetime-nemesis YFN Lucci, both harkens back to his Rich Gang days and sounds like a song he’s been waiting his entire career to make. “RIP Big & Mack” lopes with a similar throwback to Thug’s 2014-era sound and makes the wise decision to give T.I. roughly a minute at the end of the song to just talk his shit.
Unfortunately, Uy Scuti is too long, too tapped into playlists, and — tragically, since it’s a Young Thug album — not weird enough (that album cover was a red herring). “Whoopty Doo” sounds like a half-forgotten song from the So Much Fun era, and Thug’s lavish brags are so lazy that his half-hearted exclamations of the track’s title are unintentionally perfect fits. “Yuck”’s channeling of Jeezy-era Atlanta trap could have been compelling, but it all feels a bit paint-by-numbers, and Ken Carson really stinks up the place with his verse: “My life’s so unrated, I swear this shit a movie / It’s made by A24, yo’ shit went to Tubi,” he raps through Auto-Tune set to Playboi Carti mode.
With a greater sense of adventure and a bit of fine-tuning, Uy Scuti could have been the Thug version of Carti’s Music, another overstuffed project but one that was pushed to moderate success by its maximalism. It’s not hard to imagine a version of Uy Scuti that could’ve exceeded that project thanks to the raw emotion he brings on songs like the brilliant, psychedelic Mariah The Scientist duet “Dreams Rarely Do Come True” and “Miss My Dogs.” On the latter, Thug defiantly responds to the accusations over a syrupy, soulful beat and apologizes to those hurt by the recorded calls. It’s pain rap at its most candid, Thug’s voice heavy with genuine contrition.
Often though, that emotion is left unrefined by puzzling creative decisions. The dire lyrics of “Blaming Jesus” demand something other than its cookie-cutter, Drake-core bounce beat, and the depth he digs on his verses for “On The News” is undermined by a misplaced (but still fire) Cardi B feature.
Uy Scuti gives you enough to feel good about where Thug is going if you don’t really care about the politics of the rap internet though it’s clear that Thug does on a level that’s now hamstringing his music. As debates over what “real” means turn into bad faith frenzies between stan accounts, it’s a shame to see Thug mired in it, because he always seemed impervious to it. I remember after our interview concluded six years ago, as I left the room, I saw his entourage bring in half a dozen Pelican cases and two studio speakers. It was late and everyone was tired but Thug wanted to keep making music in a city he was never supposed to know existed, let alone visit as an esteemed guest. It felt like he couldn’t do it any other way. It felt real.
