As if Young Thug didn’t have enough controversy swirling around him as he went into release weekend for his hotly anticipated album Uy Scuti—his first project since getting out of jail last fall—the rapper put one last cherry on the top of a shitstorm sundae that included leaked jail calls in which he gossips about his peers, allegations that he was guilty of the very thing he and others have ostraczied Gunna for, and a messy but compelling interview where he admitted depression was stifling his creativity. But truly, is it really a Young Thug release without some bizarre cover art to fan the flames?
Shortly before Uy Scuti—which takes its title from the name of one of the biggest stars in the galaxy—dropped, Thug heralded its release with a tweet: “If you wanna be the biggest, go white.” Sure enough, the project’s lead image is an extreme closeup of Thug with his skin bleached supernova white, not unlike Druski’s recent viral skit, with blue eyes to finish it off. Over the weekend, Thug indulged the troll even harder, applying the same effect to the faces of all of the album’s featured collaborators like Travis Scott and T.I. (The internet got a special kick out of Vitiligo 21 Savage.)
It’s another bemusing move in what’s been about a month of bemusing activity surrounding Thug, a stunt that feels especially head-scratching considering the end of track one on Uy Scuti features a rhyme scheme where Thug deploys the N-word with the hard “er.” But there’s no real connection or calculated provocation to draw between the cover and that moment, or any other subject matter or theme that plays out across the album. This is the same rapper who wore a dress on one of his most seminal mixtapes, and posed as fully naked as allowed on his breakout project—visages simultaneously in direct contrast and opposition with the street tough guy image upheld in his raps, but the other small but significant ways in which Thug likes to challenge masculinity and insecurities whenever he pleases. His excellent debut So Much Fun may have traded in that impulse in favor of a simple striking image, and Business Is Business, which dropped during his incarceration, feels downright pedestrian by comparison but in the grand scheme of Thug’s career, this is a stock go-to move.
Sure enough, he admitted that it’s not that deep during an appearance on the It’s Up There podcast over the weekend, repeatedly dismissing it as “some fun shit.” When Thug did offer a bit of introspection, he explained it as a commentary that whiteness is still the benchmark to reach the highest heights in music. “You want to be the biggest in this [industry]? You gotta be Eminem,” he said with a wry laugh.
Still it bears repeating, there are no songs or passages on Uy Scuti that really engage with this idea, which would suggest the cover was a last-minute tactic to titillate and less of a core theme worth unpacking. Thug is at his best when he gets you talking both about his antics, and the music they’re in service of.
