The two legendary South label heads that helped Young Thug become famous
The return of Young Thug to hip-hop has been a great benefit to the culture, and his release from Fulton County jail on October 30th last year had fans ecstatic. As many know, he was part of Georgia’s longest-ever RICO trial, meaning fans haven’t been able to enjoy live performances from Thug for over two years.
That said, as an artist, he has probably returned to an even bigger fanbase than he had due to the amount of time people have had to explore his entire discography, and those who weren’t previously interested may now find themselves excitedly waiting for Thugger’s joint album with Lil Baby.
That said, a lot of people helped him get to where he is today and two of the most important individuals who got him to stardom are, unsurprisingly, from the South. During an in-depth conversation about how he came up, Thugger thanked the controversial Cash Money owner Birdman.
The Louisiana native has had a lot of bad press over the years due to his financial disputes with his former signee, Lil’ Wayne. However, Young Thug had no problem emphasising the importance of the Cash Money founder, explaining, “Birdman helped because there is so much that he’s doing. But when you’re close to him, you learn [how he does it]. I know [a lot] about him.”
The ‘Stoner’ emcee admitted that the lessons he learned from Birdman were about finance, detailing, “When he got his first check, he signed and got $7million. His next big check was when he was 18 years old, and he signed for $30million.”
Still, before his huge boost, Young Thug was signed to Gucci Mane’s label, 1017 Records. Few know that Gucci Mane and Young Thug grew up together, but the ‘Best Friend’ rapper said that the 1017 founder was the key to his success, stating, “Gucci and I are from the same set. Gucci is going to make you a man. Gucci is going to make you a monster. Gucci is going to make you rich. Gucci is going to make you share. It’s hard to believe, too.”
He continued, “He gave my partner some money. I’ve always been a sharing person. But he made me keep going because at one point, I was on the verge of not doing sh*t for anybody, because nobody was doing anything for me. But I’ll hear him say nobody does anything for him and that he does everything for everybody. But he still gives.”
Since his release from jail, Thugger has only released his track, ‘King Spider Back’ but many are simply waiting for an album and since Lil Baby confirmed that their joint project is “most definitely” on the way, Atlanta natives are waiting for what is set to be a groundbreaking body of work for the city.
During an interview with Complex, the My Turn creator spoke about what happened shortly after Yung Thug’s acquittal, revealing, “We probably locked in the studio about 10 days after that!” He continued, “We got tons of songs. Just that one on WHAM, though. I could have done more.”
Speaking about how quickly he and Young Thug connected, Baby added, “I’m the first person to have a Young Thug verse since he’s been out. So, I didn’t want to just overdo him anyway!”