

Though QT is a collaboration between the British producer Sophie, the PC Music labelhead A.G. Read Young Thug's FADER cover story and Rich Homie Quan's GEN F profile. Say that and look at your phone, say that and look at your favorite shirt, say that and survey your kitchen, and your friends, and feel proud that you've made it.

I've done did a lot of shit just to live this here lifestyle.

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The very existence of their collaboration-uniting two free agents with unclear places in the major label system-is a victory to celebrate. He never apes Thug's offbeat yelps and screeches, but instead seems to take the messages of those noises to heart: that it's not what you say, but how memorably you say it. On "Lifestyle," Quan pronounces skaaaate like it's the sound effect after a wrong guess on a game show and clicks his tongue for the last syllable of I'm in her mouth just like toothpaste. Descriptions of Thug's music often make him seem out of control, but over a serene, modestly gorgeous beat by London on da Track, he's all power and grace, his ups and downs more like ballet.įew seem as creatively emboldened by Thug as his partner in Rich Gang, Rich Homie Quan. Verse one includes the odd line, She can't even get me hard, then verse two gets even more outrageous with 28 floors up, I feel like I could F-L-Y/ Pee on top of these bitches. "Lifestyle" is more polished than all of those songs, though Thug sounds as unhinged as ever. On their collaborative "Take Kare," it became no longer clear who was setting the tone for whom. With "Stoner," "Danny Glover," and "About the Money," he proved himself a writer of approachable hits. In his FADER cover story, Thug called Wayne his "idol." But by now, Thug has twisted and stretched himself out of Wayne's shadow. These two bend words like no one else can. Read iLoveMakonnen's FADER feature story.Ī year ago, as he tip-toed from Livemixtapes into the mainstream, it was easiest to explain Young Thug in terms of Lil Wayne. "Wishin You Well" captures the randomness and richness of being alive, and in the very fact of its release, after Makonnen finally found the footing of a career, it's proof that life's worth soldiering on for. Like many relationships, and even more like their heartbroken retellings, this song never reaches a climax or conclusion so much as it trails into confusion and nothingness: I moved out to Reno, Arizona/ I mean, it was Reno, Nevada, he stumbles at the end, I've been drinking these things from the bottles/ I can't remember. By sticking to the idiosyncratic, even at the expense of a coherent plot, he lands on something that's relatable because it feels so real. Recalling time with a woman who spurned him, his details are strange and vivid: they crash a yellow Corolla, meet rattlesnakes that don't bite. In all of Makonnen's music, he wears his feelings on his sleeve, and the meandering freestyle of "Wishin You Well" is his greatest evocation of love. But this weird one, produced by Mike WiLL Made-It, might be the most universal, and its the most undeniably his in a year that was undeniably his. No club will ever go up to its ruminating, 30-second sitar intro.

"Wishin You Well" hardly resembles the songs that first won Makonnen attention. Even more than a new artist to acknowledge, this was a person to actively root for. Shortly after the discovery of his music came the discovery of his accidental role in the death of a childhood friend, and his subsequent five years of house arrest with that backstory, he attained the status of myth. His phrasing is loosey-goosey, his vocal tone audacious, his ideas coming from odd angles. But it benefited his work: by evolving in obscurity, like a bug on a desert island, Makonnen arrived at a form that was truly original and wholly his own. How he was overlooked for so long, in a world of countless music-covering media properties, we'll never know.
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Eyes and ears were available to anyone with an engaging identity and a signature sound-or in some cases just a signature line, primed for Vine.īy the time that iLoveMakonnen broke through, early this summer, he'd self-released ten full projects and dozens of music videos to virtually zero acclaim. Little indies became big things when they captured the feeling of homegrown communities. Major labels did their best work by reissuing and amplifying self-released tracks. Across genres, it became the year of DIY. What 2014 lacked in universally beloved albums, it more than made up in breakthrough artists.
