Young Thug and the football-team-sized crowd of folks who accompany him pack into a New York City recording studio. I try to tally the shiny things hanging from him: four massive rings, a watch, sunglasses, earrings, two face piercings, three bracelets, and three chains, all drenched in yellow and white diamonds. He looks like a chandelier wearing a leather jacket. He’s tall—6 foot four—and rail-thin. (Rick Ross’s Rolex could fit around Thug’s thigh.) He is finishing-school-polite: “I could never take a woman’s seat…” “Thank you. Thank you. How are you not married yet? You’re so perfect. Thank you.” “Would anyone care for some promethazine and codeine?”

Thug is a very necessary element in the hip-hop periodic table. Nowadays rappers are businessmen—savvy, self-aware, overly conscious of their brand. Thugger, on the other hand, is holding a pistol in one hand, tweeting with the other, high on something far stronger than weed, speaking in a language that I’ll dub East Atlanta Dothraki. He’s Lou Reed. He’s post-thug. At any moment, we could lose him to any number of vices or vendettas. Also at any moment, we may get one of the grittiest, most hard-hitting Southern hip-hop albums since Aquemini.

The project has been delayed, but we caught up with him now, partly because trying to figure out where Young Thug will be in a few months seems futile and partly because we really, really need to know: Did he try to kill Lil Wayne?

GQ: You excited about the new album?

Young Thug: Not really.

People’s biggest complaint is that you mumble. Does that ever get to you?

It don’t really get to me. When it gets to me, I’ll do it worse. I’ll make a whole fucking mumbling album.

How would you describe where you’re from?

Like the bottom of your shoes. I’m from the bottom of your shoes.

You’re pretty weird now. Were you weird in high school?

When I was in high school, I had a gambling problem. I played quarterback, and I used to have ten pairs of dice in a little bag. I never even went to the school where I was from. My dad wanted me to play football so bad, he took me to Washington High School on the west side of Atlanta because they were number one. They never lost. I played for one year, but then I started gambling again and going to other hoods. All the people in school probably thought I was weird, so I was quiet the whole time I was in school. But I always paid attention to every single thing.

How was it interacting with the girls? Were you popular with them?

Of course. Yeah. Girls like the cool guys. You would’ve liked the cool guy instead of the class clown, right?

But weren’t you cool, though, right? Cool guys usually have a lot of friends, et cetera.

Oh, you mean, like, popular cool. I was popular cool because I played varsity quarterback in the ninth grade. But I was calm because I didn’t really know anyone. Every girl at school had my number spray-painted on their faces and shit. I didn’t know nobody, so I was just kept to myself.

Why’d you decide to connect with Birdman and Cash Money Records?

Because my whole life I looked up to them. I wanted to stunt like Birdman, which I fucking am. And I wanted to be like Wayne.

Plain and simple: Did you try to have Lil Wayne killed?

Fuck no.

Does it bother you that Wayne, one of your idols, clearly has a personal problem with you?

Maybe if I was a peasant it would. But of course it bothers me some, because that’s what I always wanted. It was so weird: I always wanted to be in the studio with Wayne. I would tell Birdman to bring him over, but he never fucking came.