How did the feud between Lil' Wayne and Young Thug turn this crazy?
For the most part, mainstream rappers rarely feud in 2015. One can probably attribute this to the fact that all these guys are constantly working with one another—Kanye works with Drake, Drake works with Kendrick, Kendrick works with Taylor Swift. It’s just not smart business to start shit with your co-workers.
According to an indictment uncovered Thursday, however, it seems as if rapper feuds aren’t completely stuck in the ’90s. Jeffrey Williams—also known as Young Thug—was arrested by police yesterday for threatening to shoot a mall cop in the face, and that allowed Mike Petchenik, a reporter for Atlanta’s ABC station, to discover this indictment, which sure makes it sound like Young Thug and Cash Money records CEO Birdman may have been involved in attempt to kill Lil’ Wayne.
Whoa! If you don’t know what a Barter is, or why Birdman might be chucking champagne bottles at Lil’ Wayne (and how Drake is involved), or, most importantly, you want to understand who all of the characters are in this drama, look no further than the next few hundred words or so.
Who is Young Thug?
Young Thug resists explainer journalism. In fact, it may be his singular purpose on the planet Earth. But if one were to attempt to explain Young Thug, I guess the place to start is to describe him as an alien sent from the future to disrupt conventional notions of what rap music ought to look or sound like. His music defies traditional expectations of “melody” or “lyrics” or even “saying words that sound like anything remotely similar to English or, really, any human language.” Here’s one of his most famous songs, “Stoner.” You’ll get the idea.
Anyway, Thugger rose to fame in 2014, and released his debut album, Barter 6 (more on this later) earlier in 2015. Much of his success could be attributed to riding on the wave of some postmodern interpretation of Lil’ Wayne’s surreal, scratchy-throated flow. Young Thug himself called Wayne one of his primary influences, saying in March of 2014 there’s no one he’d rather get in the studio with. Times have changed!
Why doesn’t Young Thug like Lil’ Wayne anymore?
Tracing the drama of this feud takes a little bit of work. When Young Thug named his album Barter 6—a direct shot at Lil’ Wayne, whose most famous album is titled Tha Carter III—very clearly something was up. That came out in April 2015, but in September, Thugger, Rich Homie Quan, and Birdman—the founder of Cash Money Records, Lil’ Wayne’s record label—released Rich Gang: Tha Tour Pt. 1, and subsequently promoted the hell out of it, dropping seven promotional singles. Noisey theorizes this might’ve pissed off Lil’ Wayne, who was probably wishing Birdman dedicated that much focus to his ostensible comeback album, Tha Carter V. In any case, Birdman and Young Thug were certainly working together in a close personal capacity.
So maybe Lil’ Wayne saw Birdman as replacing him with Young Thug—who knows. But Lil’ Wayne definitely sued Birdman for $51 million in January, and that probably didn’t make Birdman very happy.