If you were to take a stab in the dark and listen to whatever currently trending rap playlist Spotify curated, you’re likely to be familiar with the work of Young Thug. Better yet, you’d have probably heard numerous Young Thug’s, as the genre seems to rely on the next top dog, in some way or another, living under his shadow. The landscape of modern trap music all too easily enables copycats, and the reception is far too welcoming. It’s no secret that the vocal maestros brand has reached a near unparalleled point of contagion, but with each mindless copycat, it feels like the sound becomes less and less familiar to the original, and infinitely more uninventive.
That plagiarism reaches ahead and a new peak on latest track ‘Take It To Trial’. The lead single for the upcoming YSL collaborative album ‘Slime Language 2’, endorsed by Thugger himself, is this utterly forgettable mish-mash of performances that’ll not only have you seeing double but triple. Thug isn’t the vocal chameleon or powerhouse we’ve come to expect. If it isn’t Young Thug’s phoned-in performance that reeks of that same uninventive zeal his contemporaries use that fills you with doubt, it’ll be the fact that he’s joined by Gunna and Yak Gotti who more or less replicate Thugs lead. Stooping to uncharted levels of dullness – even by Gunna’s standards – the pair’s performances aren’t so much this refreshing breath of fresh air, as they are the nail in the tracks coffin. I’m constantly left wondering when this inane partnership of Thug and Gunna will run its course, and while it shows no signs of slowing down, ‘Take It To Trial’ should be proof that it’s not nearly as exciting as they give it credit for.
It’s not as if the production patches the holes left by the posse’s less than serviceable performances. Instrumentals, even at the best of times, have proven to be Young Thugs Achilles heel, and ‘Take It To Trial’ might just be poised to take the title of most underdeveloped. It sounds like the first search result on a hunt for the epitome of a SoundCloud user’s attempt at a ‘Gunna Type Beat’. Between its criminally unpronounced synths and abusively overproduced hi-hats, the instrumental lacks even a fleck of identity. It ages like milk, and spoils before the song even reaches conclusion.
Sure there’s this vague air of lethality and rebellion in the lyrics, but it’s all hidden beneath vanilla presentation. They’ll be damned if they were to try and make their disobedient lifestyles in any way believable sonically – as the collective instead retreat to their comfort zone, fueled with hollow braggadocio and less than flattering advertising. You’d at least expect the excessive repetition of “Take this shit to motherfuckin’ trial” to pack some kind of punch, but it just comes across as nonchalant and flashy. The trio act like a band of teenage hoodlums who embellish their lives with stark lies and exaggerated statements to impress their friends, not knowing the first thing about the lifestyle they preach.
The collective fail to talk the talk and walk the walk. If the track didn’t face enough of an uphill battle already, marketing ‘Take It To Trial’ as the promotional substance for an upcoming project, when it screams anything but single material, only works to the detriment of Thug and co. I’m left more doubtful for whatever ‘Slime Language 2’ has in store now, than I was before hearing the supposed benchmark. Tracks like these are a dime a dozen, and it’s particularly disappointing witnessing Young Thug sacrifice his talents to put his contemporaries on a level playing field when the end result is as underwhelming as this.
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