Young Thug critics will have you know the eccentric Slime Season rapper is all kinds of trash and disgustingly overrated. But there’s just something about Thugga Thugga that reminds legendary musicians of past legendary musicians. Elton John was thought to have lost his everloving mind in 2015 when he compared Thug to John Lennon. The “Tiny Dancer” icon explained that Thug’s unique style reminded him of Lennon’s fearlessness. Last year, Wyclef Jean compared the 25-year-old trap star to Tupac. Clef got a lot of flack for the comparison but said it was taken on out of context.
The Haitian hitmaker was on The Breakfast Club Tuesday morning and clarified his hot take and said it was the “combination of Pac’s Thug Life tat and [Young Thug’s] Haiti tat, and the part of history that he chose to know,” that reminded Thug of the fallen rap great. Clef said he was “amazed” by Thugger’s love for Haiti and was stunned when the rapper started speaking on the island nation’s 1804 revolution.
“I’m not expecting him to even have that—like out of everything I’m expecting him to know, it’s not that part of—they don’t even teach you that in school,” the 47-year-old artist shared. “And with Pac, the Black Panther, that side of it because you know there’s a side where you fight in the street and that revolution side. So in that context, it was a music conversation.”
Young Thug also has that Tupacian work ethic, according to Clef. “That ‘every time I land I gotta find a studio. I got to be in the studio'” kind of worth ethic. The Carnival star said he witnessed this first hand when he got in the studio with Jeffery, calling, “[Thug] was like, ‘I just learned how to do Trap music, Clef. Let me show you what I do.’ That’s how I knew I could’ve put him on “I Swear.” Dude played like 40 tracks that got nothing to do with nothing. It was that work ethic.”
Well, that explains it.
