According to Young Thug's collaborators, he works quickly, often immediately. "Thug came up with the chorus melody to 'Lifestyle' the very first time he heard the beat, while we sat at our the kitchen making music," remembers London on Da Track. "He always knows what he wants: 'Them chords, right there. That clap, right there. With other people, they are still writing in the studio, still figuring things out. With Thug, the melody's just in him."

"When Thug hears a song, he knows how the whole shape of the thing goes," says Metro Boomin who has worked extensively with Thug. "He can nudge the whole frame to the left to make it offbeat and sound how he wants it to sound."

"Thug will go in there and hum a whole song," says Dun Deal. "Honestly, 'Stoner' probably took about 15 minutes to record. I had the beat partially done, and when he heard it, he was like, 'That's a hit. Let's do it. What should the song be about?' When he came up with the hook, it was over. It probably took two or three [takes] to get the whole song."

The idea that Young Thug's songs begin as muttering shapes, with melodies and peaks and valleys developing before words surface, comes up again and again in stories about him, though the reality seems more complicated than that. Because if you poke at the comet stream of his voice, it actually separates into particles of thick wordplay and slang: "If a nigga base loaded, we Red Sock ‘em," he raps, indelibly, on 1017 Thug's "Murder".

"This is the truth: Thug, more than anything, is a lyrical genius," says Dun Deal. "He can really just rap. But my favorite lines of his are the simplest ones, the details no one else thinks of focusing on or pointing out. Sometimes it's something so small, like that line from 'Stoner': 'We don't stand in line, foreign shoes hurt your feet.' You know, you can't be standing around in those damn Gucci shoes—that shit hurt! He raps about what's around him, and he actually kills it just by looking at stuff. If he's wearing a snake on his T-shirt, he'll probably rap about that."