The Guatemalan-American DJ and producer Carnage has been teasing Young Martha, his collaboration with Young Thug, since December. Meanwhile, Thug—perhaps owing to his ceaseless work flow—seemed practically unaware of the EP’s existence until recently. Carnage did a couple interviews behind the EP, and Thug, in turn, spared a few nondescript promotional tweets. (He did show up for the “Homie” video shoot, at least.) A lot can be gleaned from these respective levels of interest in the project. For Carnage, Thug presents an interesting challenge: an erratic and unruly MC who springs in and out of the pockets of the zaniest productions. For Thug, though, these are just B-sides. Beautiful Thugger Girls, his ambitious, oft-acoustic mixtape from June, was a lofty auteur’s gambit; the stakes are significantly lower here, a beta testing area for new flows.
Still, there was reason to be intrigued by this pairing. Young Thug is rap’s foremost eccentric; match him up with an unlikely beatmaker and the results are usually sublime. Carnage’s rap productions are often weird in their own right, wobbly things that buzz and drone. Young Martha isn’t a perfect marriage, or even the finest taste of their respective sounds, but it can be dazzling in spots. The four-track EP, which includes a year-old SoundCloud one-off, is just a small sampling of what we’ve come to expect from Thug—frantic inflections, screwball punchlines, unconventional mechanics. But Carnage gets a chance to stretch his legs a bit, too.
Young Thug entertains his wildest whims, a practice that has produced quite a bit of brilliance from the prolific artist. Carnage recently revealed that Thug “will go in the studio and finish 10 songs in a day,” and carries around a hard drive with over 1,000 of them. He described Thug as a “musical genius” who has so much material that he probably forgets many of the songs he’s recorded. One imagines that sessions for an EP like this offer an opportunity to experiment and push the limits of new cadences. At this point, Thug has so many it must be a bit like Seth MacFarlane doing voiceover work. The belching “Homie,” almost a variant of a flow on “Harambe,” and the unruffled hum on “Don’t Call Me” are broadcasts from two entirely different worlds. In a snap, without much effort, “10,000 Slimes” dissolves from a yodel into something resembling spoken word poetry.
The ebbs and shifts on Young Martha are all charming and ear-catching, but the writing isn’t as striking as anything Thug has done in the last 18 months. There are a handful of his characteristic, absurdist jabs, for example, “If a pussy nigga play with me/Swear to God, Kirk Franklin can’t save him” or “Put that fuckboy on the newspaper/In the sea with some tons strapped to his ankles.” But for the most part, his writing is less graphic than we’ve grown accustomed to. The issue isn’t just that he’s showing less; he’s both more indirect and less colorful. Some bars are strictly narration. He relies almost entirely on motion to keep songs going. Songs are built on filler, but when they kick into full gear, he rips through as if using muscle memory.
Carnage has worked with his fair share of rappers—Lil Uzi Vert, A$AP Ferg, and Lil Yachty among them—but Young Thug is by far the most dynamic artist he’s produced for, and on Young Martha he takes the opportunity to try on some new sounds. The jelly synths on “10,000 Slimes” are amorphous enough that Thug can adjust the swing of his rhythms without consequence. The cathedral organ on “Homie” and the church organ on “Liger” provide two contrasting tones and textures, and Thug tweaks his raps accordingly. Thug can push Carnage to take more risks, and Carnage can continue to expand Thug’s palette. The chemistry here might lead to a breakthrough, if nurtured. Carnage has already revealed that Young Martha will be a series, in the vein of the Slime Season trilogy, culminating in a collaborative album. There are reasons to look forward to future installments, but the first is merely scratching the surface.
