Young Thug has never been more popular — but at what cost?
A go-to collaborator of late — Post Malone’s “Goodbye,” Ed Sheeran's "Feels," Childish Gambino’s “This is America” and one of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road” remixes are among his recent credits — Thug’s been rewarded for an ever-changing flow and head-turning ab-libs that defied convention over the past decade.
And in a delightfully unexpected turn of events, he's influenced others. Hot young rappers like Lil Baby and Gunna owe a great debt to Thug’s experimental approach.
It’s all led up to the August album “So Much Fun,” Thug’s first to debut at No. 1, and the cause for his current co-headlining tour with rapper Machine Gun Kelly that stopped at the Rave’s Eagles Ballroom Sunday.
But "So Much Fun" isn't the wonderfully weird byproduct of an artist bending the industry to his will. It's a 62-minute compromise, with Thug diluting his eccentricities, and pairing up with loads of guests, to maximize streaming ubiquity. Similarly in Milwaukee, Thug sacrificed what has made him so distinct, turning in a low-stakes, generic rap show.
Not that the frequently bouncing and moshing crowd didn't have fun hearing tracks like "Just How It Is," a "Fun" highlight, latching onto Thug's "ooo-woo" coos, or the handful of older songs like the emo-trap brooder "Relationship" from 2017's "Beautiful Thugger Girls" or the platinum stomper "Lifestyle," his Rich Gang collaboration from 2014 with Rich Homie Quan.
But just as "Fun" was designed for easy listening, Thug's show was designed for maximum appeal. The emphasis was on the bass and the beats from the DJ, and the idiosyncrasies of the vocal delivery — Thug's greatest strength and most admirable attribute — were largely lost.
To his credit, the twisting, turning flow came to the forefront for "The London," but it was too little, too late. It was a captivating curveball at the end of a repetitive show that managed to thrill fans, but also wasn't gripping enough to prevent the crowd from noticeably thinning out by the time Thug wrapped up his 60-minute set at midnight.
Machine Gun Kelly goes after Eminem
Kelly’s influence may not be as great as his current tour mate; his greatest claim to fame in recent years has been a heavily publicized, gimmicky rap feud with Eminem. But Kelly did have the larger, and louder, crowd of the two headliners Sunday.
Beginning his 50-minute set with a clip from Brian De Palma's bloated, oft-referenced “Scarface,” Kelly Sunday signaled that subtlety (and originality) weren't exactly his strong suit.
But the fans clearly got a kick out of the blunt approach, whether he was spewing heavy-handed rhymes for new tracks from his "Hotel Diablo" album (sample line: "Drown myself in alcohol, that (expletive) doesn't help at all"), or twirling a drumstick and walloping the kit for a bombastic solo that touched on System of a Down’s “Chop Suey.”
There’s certainly a charisma to Kelly’s brash, go-all-out energy; he tried to live up to the title of “Loco” by hovering over the crowd from the safety pit and flailing his arms. But even though fans dug the Eminem dis track “Rap Devil” Sunday, despite some weak disses (“All you do is read the dictionary and stay inside”), it’s hard to fathom Kelly being relevant enough in his 40s for a cocky young rapper to come after him with a diss track.
Polo G among four openers
Before Polo G even took the stage for his 20-minute set, his DJ was calling for mosh pits and phone lights, like he was running through some “hype up the crowd” checklist. But aside from set closer “Pop Out,” Polo G’s set barely had a pulse. The Chicago rapper was deathly dull on stage, while the tragedy and nuance of promising slice of life tracks like “Through Da Storm” didn’t translate live.
Three other acts performed Sunday — Strick, Dora & Dolly and RJ. They were all drowned out by their own backing tracks, and barely had any stage presence themselves across their 10-minute sets that, combined, made for an extremely tedious half-hour.
The takeaways
- Thug and Kelly did perform one track together, their "Fun" collaboration "Ecstasy."
- In a startling moment, a shirtless guy who had clearly been partying too hard stormed into the area of the balcony I was sitting and jumped up on the narrow ledge, arms outstretched, his back to the stage. A security guard managed to grab him really quickly and drag him out of there.
- At first, security kept shining lights at women sitting on top of guys’ shoulders on the floor, to get them to get down. But Kelly gave a shout-out to one woman on a guy’s shoulders, inspiring other women to do the same. And from that point forward, security didn’t try to stop them.
- Kelly chastised a fan for shining a flashing light from their phone, claiming he was going to have a seizure, which was a strange complaint considering the intense strobes Kelly used for his set.
- At one point when Kelly was on stage, you could spot an inflatable T-Rex head popping up in the crowd.
Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.
Piet also talks concerts, local music and more on "TAP'd In" with Jordan Lee. Hear it at 8 a.m. Thursdays on WYMS-FM (88.9), or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Young Thug lacks style, Machine Gun Kelly lacks substance, at Milwaukee show - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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