BUSINESS IS BUSINESS: Young Thug's Darkest Hour, the Album it spawned, and the Fight for His Life
How a half baked and broken album could be the Atlanta rappers most important work of his career. A reflection on BUSINESS IS BUSINESS one year later.
“If that’s true what this is is coercion…
“…witness intimidation, ex parte communications that we have a constitutional right to be present for,” said attorney Brian Steel in court on June 13th before being placed in cuffs in the Fulton County courtroom.
Steel who is a criminal defense attorney and according to his website: “tirelessly defended those accused of criminal misconduct since 1991 and has built a national criminal defense practice in state and federal courts based on exhaustive preparation, creative and novel motions, skillful appellate advocacy and zealous courtroom showdowns.”
On this day he is representing Jeffery Lamar Williams also known as Young Thug.
Steel was referring to an alleged ex parte meeting which involved the judge, prosecutors, and a key witness, but not the defense. Ex parte being communication between one party involved in a legal matter and the judge or decision-maker without the presence or knowledge of the other parties involved which is strictly prohibited in legal matters, especially a RICO case like the one Young Thug finds himself involved in.
“That’s the kind of thing a defendant can argue deprived them of a fair trial,” said Lester Tate, a trial lawyer and the former president of the State Bar of Georgia.
This is simply the latest fiasco that has plagued one of the most high-profile RICO cases in the country’s history. The trial has spawned numerous viral videos and soundbites, as well as one witness being stabbed in jail.
But it has also seen the release of an album from the man at the center of it all. One year removed, we will look into the impact and importance of this album.
“It certainly cannot be the law that every time a judge asks a question, the failure to answer lands you in jail,”
- Colette Resnik Steel (Wife and legal partner of Mr. Steel)
Young Thug reconciles with his present moment on BUSINESS IS BUSINESS.
We have witnessed Young Thug in ways we are not used to seeing him. The braggadocio and lanky rap superstar known for his daring gender-fluid fashion choices, we see rounder, quieter, and timid, even. Young Thug’s bravado as a leader in the Atlanta rap scene is in stark contrast to the docile and serious Jeffery Lamar Williams we see now.
But, BUSINESS IS BUSINESS prepared us for this in many ways. The album released June 23, 2023, took Young Thug down much more solemn and uncharacteristically introspective avenues.
“I was rockin' Jimmy Choos on my first tour
I still was thinkin' like a fool on my first tour
Now I'm on my worst tour”
-From his track Hoodie
Thug doesn’t hide from the tragedy of his situation. He addresses that the present moment is, undoubtedly, the worst time in his life. He casts these feelings with reflections on his past, his first tour, his hometown, his children, his choices. These are themes we see throughout the project.
The album is objectively imperfect. Noticeably fluffed, deviating and swerving through a record that certainly lacks cohesion at times. Throw-away-worthy songs litter the seemingly improvisatory tracklist.
Yet, there is a throughline within this bloated album that contains the most important, daring, and seductive tracks that will define Young Thug’s career no matter the outcome of his trial.
Young Thug will join a list that includes iconic projects from Lil Wayne, Tupac, T.I., and Mac Dre of rappers creating or releasing albums on the heels of serving time for crimes. This album takes elements from all of these influences, including Tupac’s refrain in the intro to “Want Me Dead” threatening “Expect me, *****, like you expect Jesus to come back / Expect me, *****, I'm coming”.
This tells me Young Thug knows how important this album is to his legacy, he raps
“First lick I ever hit was for a Rollie /
I put his Nikes on my kids like a goalie /
…
Who the fuck is the creator of this drippin' shit? /
…
Just a diamond in the rough /
I got a bag, I'm not gon' tussle /
Got sick and tired of showin' my muscle /
I'm 'bout to take these ***** ho”
on “Abracadabra”.
Paul Thompson of Pitchfork says of Young Thug’s approach on this album, “He’s zen about chain snatchings—he’s sure he’ll get his back… he opens up veins, singing about extremes of pain, joy, and paranoia”. From what I hear, there is startling aloofness to his own well-being on this album. It is difficult to tell if Young Thug is at peace or resigned.
“Listen, if you don’t tell me how you got this information then you and I are going to have some problems,” - Judge Glanville
“I have problems right now!” - Brian Steel
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS is the last oppritunity Young Thug had to express himself before his attention turned to the fight for his freedom in the courtroom. It has been exactly one year since the release of this album and Young Thug is still fighting, still awaiting, still in limbo with his future.
The album illustrates Young Thug processing what losing this all-important legal battle means for him existentially. There are several motifs that referance the disappearing act that he seemingly fears more than dying.
I told my brother, "Take this watch because I'm vulnerable" /
I let her get away with murder when I fall in love /
I told 'em, "Ante up the chips because they know it's us" /
I told my ******, "Fuck them ****** 'cause it's fuck us" /
They want me dead, they want me dead /
If I had one wish, I'd bring my ****** back from the dead /
I'm sippin' codeine, this ain't no red, no /
I'm up, but came from the struggle, duckin' red dots
Young Thug suggests that he has always been ready to die, but maybe he wasn’t prepared to be locked away for what could be the rest of his life depending on the sentencing. He is vulnerable and he knows it, now it is time to go all-in to save everything he has worked for. With references to Ghosts, Wraiths, Casper, Houdini, even titling one song Abracadabra shows the ruminations of a man who sits on the knife’s edge of life in prison. And this reality is maybe not as glorious as he imagined dying might be.
Much of this existential dread that Young Thug has built up is distilled in this verse from Hoodie:
And you was supposed to call me back
But I'm glad you didn't 'cause I got busy
I just got a call, one of my brothers got whacked
It was time to ride, slid the sticks and the masks
You know if I pass, you won't get a call back and
I won't hit you back, you never could've imagined
Round of applause, you think you winnin' the battle
Mama say she look in my eyes, she see a casket
Daddy said he look in my eyes, he see a bastard
I look in his eyes and I see a future pastor
Funny ****** tryna be cool, you're an actor
No, I don't wanna lose, so I Casper
This is such a valuable verse from the album that paints the picture of turmoil that Thug is embroiled in. It walks the listener through his relationship to death and to his family. The verse concludes solemnly with a resolution that he would rather “Casper” or ghost/disappear entirely before he loses, a treastise that extends from his street dealings to his superstardom.
In other words: By any means necessary.
“How did you get that information supposedly from my chambers? Did somebody tell you?” Judge Glanville demanded
“You should’ve told me!” Mr. Steel snapped back.
Whether or not the charges against Young Thug are true or not, really doesn’t matter. Not for our purposes at least. I am more interested in Young Thug’s thoughts and feelings which are shared more freely on this album than any other he has put out. The album is an extremely insightful glimpse into the psyche of one of the most influential and difficult to pin-down artists of the last decade. This is a man who, producer Dun Deal said he once asked to see the sheet of paper Thug was holding while he recorded, only to be shown ‘weird signs and shapes’ instead of words.
What motivated Young Thug to move in the way he moved? What drove him to the levels that he did? Legal or otherwise.
Money is an easy answer. It is probably what you might say if I asked you why you went to work every day. It definitely motivated Thug, no doubt about it. But there is something else that Young Thug has identified on this record that motivated him more.
On the Metro Boomin’ version of the album his track “Sake of My Kids” sees Thug say this:
I was in it, in it for the sake of my kids (Yeah) /
I promise (I swear), we on, we never stoppin'
Thug has six kids of his own he says he takes care of with “passion”. Young Thug comes from a big family. He is one of eleven children and he clearly values his familial relationships more than anything else in the world.
In his interview with radio personality Sway, Sway asks Young Thug “Everything you do revolves around what’s going on for your family?” to which he answers “I live for them.”
Describing his upbringing and where he comes from, Young Thug responds this way: (he holds up his fingers in the shape of a gun) “Shooters… We come from the streets… the gutter, the struggle.”
This brings us to the most important song on the album, “Jonesboro”. Here, Young Thug’s focus becomes clearer than ever through the chorus:
Comin' out of Jonesboro South (Ayy)
***** havin' golds all through they mouth, yeah
Lifetime goals (Woo), runnin' through the roof (Wha'?)
Pullin' out the Ghost (Grah), make a ***** poof (Grah)
****** talkin' shit but what is it to do?
I knew his big homie, *****, and I got the proof (Woo)
My spot is an army base and I got the proof (What up?)
Send my bitch on vacay, put her in a coupe
Everything Young Thug has done has been to get his people, his parents, siblings, and children out of Jonesboro. A place that he described in a 2013 interview like this:
“Anything you see wrong with me came from my projects, Jonesboro South…Jonesboro…” he says, shaking his head, “You know how roaches look, right? And rats?”
Jonesboro is what made him what he is, whether he is proud of that or not. Jonesboro is what motivates Young Thug to do better for his kids, why he claims he was willing to hit a lick to put Nikes on their feet.
Wrong or right, Young Thug was determined to do better for his children. It is an admirable ambition. One that humanizes the rapper in a way that is rare for the genre that he flourishes in. Ironically, these verses that are pieced together through clever production and features were, before this album, stored away. Deemed too raw or too emotional to be shared when they were initially recorded. Created at various points in the last few years these verses that focus on his family, upbringing, and life were the most important for Young Thug to share in what could be his final project.
While he certainly finds the time to rap about the usual themes we find in a Young Thug album. It is in these spaces of surprising emotional depth where he has made a point to reflect on his hometown, his family, and the existential threat that he is currently facing. He was given one more chance to release a project before it could all come crashing down and in those moments he decided to spend his time like many of us would when faced with such peril, thinking about our parents and children and loved ones, remembering why the pain and struggle was worth it.
“You’re not entitled to a perfect trial. But this one has a certain circuslike atmosphere and a string of bizarre happenings.
This might well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.”
- Lester Tate, the former president of the Georgia Bar Association
Young Thug’s fate is still up in the air. Every confounding circumstance that unfolds in this case makes it all the more likely that the prosecution fails to achieve the burden of proof and the more circus-like the defense can make this case, the better their chances seem. But every day that goes by leaves Jeffery Lamar Williams with one less day of freedom and one more day of legal billing that eats into the empire he built for his family.
It is hard not to root for Young Thug, but I am aware that those sympathies are very possibly placed with an alleged violent gang leader. The album demonstrates to me a desire to absolve himself. Whether he seeks absolution from public perception, or himself, or with god, that depends, I suppose, on whatever he is actually guilty of.
While some critics have argued that this album is incoherent and that the sympathies Young Thug elicits are empty and overshadowed by a project that feels rushed or incomplete. Critics argue that “Eerily, the album’s hodge-podge quality has the feel of a posthumous LP made by someone who is still alive”, continuing, “while lyrically decent, feels lifeless; that might be an honest reflection of his situation right now, but it falls flat”.
I could not disagree more. What I hear on this album is urgency. The selections show me the desire of a man who no longer has access to a recording studio to set the record straight. In fact, the need to piece together an album while he is under such dire circumstances and to put it together with the loosie recordings of days bygone backup the reflections Thug shares about himself on the record. He is a man driven by a greedy need to do better for those he loves than what he experienced growing up. Coming from nothing in a hood where people have no real hopes except those that one makes for themselves. It shows me Thug is still ready to fight, even if it’s his last.
Its imperfections are what makes it so meaningful and important. And maybe this is the same lesson we must apply to the man himself. Young Thug is no role model, anything but. That said, he is a family man. He is a self-made man. He is a groundbreaking musician. He is a son and a father and he is unwilling to just sit around, even when confined to county jail, and not get the last word in to set the record straight about who he is and what is important to him.
Ultimately, what we get in this album are honest reflections. Reflections from a mortal man whose life is crashing around him, reflections that are simultaneously triumphant and unhappy, real and fanciful. It is an important album about how difficult life is as a black man in America. The album is an indictment itself on society and the criminal justice system. Young Thug asks with this project, how can a man whose actions were simply those of a father providing for his family, advancing his station in life, and thriving by any means necessary be tried for his success?
It is this logic that drives the album. This logic that serves as justification for Young Thug everything that got him to this point. There should be no hard feelings for him because everything he did, he did for the right reasons, even if you don’t see it that way.
Afterall, Business is business.
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Hey Ian, good article.