Country music has a reputation as one of America’s tried-and-true mechanisms for storytelling. Though the genre now has a very homogenous audience — according to a 2016 report, over 90 percent of white people make up its loyal listening base — those who love it speak of it as grassroots music: a genre incubated with the best and the worst of America, one that has been known to speak to outdated social and political realities. For black folks, who were systematically removed from the narrative to uphold the Johnny Cashs of the world, we know that country music is fused with our culture just as much as the cowboys who now hurl racial slurs at non-white attendees during festivals and rodeos. Which is why, when Young Thug teased that his newest project would be a “singing album” — replete with a country music-sounding snippet — called Beautiful Thugger Girls, his fans responded with a curious excitement.



All of 25, the Atlanta polymath, born Jeffery Williams, has easily become one of the most experimental artists of his generation. His gift lies in his effortless capacity to glide between melodic crooner, sheer rap talent, and creative shapeshifter — something like the second coming of shock rock vanguard Screamin’ Jay Hawkins. And Beautiful Thugger Girls — though he has a trove of mixtapes to his name, this is his major-label debut — is yet another case study in his ability to sing-rap over just about any beat that exists, similar to memorable capers on tracks like “Worth It” and his recent feature on Calvin Harris’s “Heatstroke.” Still, Thugga’s true talent is not just in what kind of music he can rap on but how he can flip almost anything to represent his singular existence. In this, BTG becomes more than a country album: the music isn’t his master, instead he bends it to his will.



The album begins with what can only be described as a traditional country tune in “Family Don’t Matter.” Of the 14 tracks that form the project, its opener contains one of the most standout lines: “Country Billy made a couple milly/ Tryna park the Rolls Royce inside the Piccadilly/ Oh he had a couple strikes actually, of course / Got another half a milly in white tees, of course.” Here, Jeffery’s voice deepens into the strongest Southern accent as he sings about Country Bill in a way that makes one wonder: Is Thug possessed by the spirit of Tim McGraw? But parking a Rolls Royce at Piccadilly Circus in London to cop a few tees is not the work of your American Marlboro archetype. This is the life of a Southern-Boy-cum-Rap-King.