8A — Tuesday, September 4, 2018
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

The most impressive music 
careers are those that convey an 
evolution in a creative sense: The 
Beatles and their growth from 
Please, Please Me to Sergeant 

Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, 
Kanye West and his growth from 
The College Dropout to Yeezus. 
Ideally, a musician’s respective 
genre should follow their creative 
advances, making for a fascinating 
display of an artist’s capability to 
mold peers and followers and to 
guide an entire genre toward a 
more creatively inspired realm. 
Similar to The Beatles’ impact on 
rock and Kanye’s impact on hip 
hop, Young Thug has been on his 
way to trap immortality as his 
artistry has evolved and the genre 
has responded with appeal. 
From his debut on Rich Gang’s 
2014 single, “Lifestyle,” that had 
listeners marveling at the warbling 
vocal style that would become 
Thug’s most iconic trait, to the 
lavender dress worn on the cover 
of 2016’s JEFFERY, Thug has 
planted himself at the vanguard 
of trap music, constantly breaking 
conventions to advance the genre 
from generally nonmusical and 
hypermasculine 
to 
beautifully 
melodic 
and 
accepting 
of 
femininity. His discography is 
covered in hard trap, groovy 
funk and homey country, and has 
become increasingly complex with 
each release (he has even received 
nods from Kanye and Elton John 
for his originality and capacity to 
push hip hop’s envelope.)
That these trendsetting and 
creative characteristics are so 
ingrained in Thug’s artistry makes 

his most recent release, Slime 
Language, a bit of a head-scratcher. 
The mixtape is bogged down by 
unoriginal 
features, 
outdated 
beats and a lack of thematic focus. 
Even its cover, with green and red 
slime oozing over hands miming 
the words “Young Stoner Life” in 
sign language, is confusing and 
uninspiring. 
Slime Language’s first knock is 
its features. In such a collaborative 
era in hip hop, it’s never a surprise 
to find a few featured artists on 
an album. In fact, it’s actually 
quite rare to come across a 
featureless project (see: J. Cole’s 
“platinum 
with 
no 
features” 
trend). Oftentimes, collaborating 
with other artists on a track 
allows a rapper to pool various 
fan bases and create a super-team 
effect. Because hip hop is such a 
personality-driven 
genre, 
each 
star has a unique voice and style, 
so listeners find a little extra 
excitement in hearing how their 
favorite personalities tackle a track 
together. The formula is typically 
fun and successful, but only when 
the personalities merged on a track 
each provide something different 
and impressive; on Slime, this 
almost never happens. Thirteen 
of the tape’s 15 tracks feature an 
artist other than Young Thug. 
What’s more, nearly every featured 
artist seems to be doing their 
best Thug impression, sounding 
indistinguishable from him and 
the other featured artists and 
accordingly eliminating the multi-
personality benefit of features. 
Additionally, for an artist who 
is perhaps most known for his 
catchy hooks, Thug outsources 
the choruses of his Slime tracks 
to other artists too often, leaving 
listeners craving more of his 
anthemic vocal acrobatics. 
Slime also falls short in the 
music department. Nearly every 
track has a beat loop with loud 
808 bass tied to each kick drum, a 
template popularized by producer 
Metro Boomin in trap’s early days, 

but one that more complex and 
musical methods of production 
have left in the dust. Ironically, 
Thug was one of the artists to 
transcend this simple template, 
incorporating elements of funk 
into JEFFERY and elements of 
country into Beautiful Thugger 
Girls. With Slime, though, the 
beats seem to have slipped back 
into 2015, a concern especially 
noticeable in the wake of Travis 
Scott’s ASTROWORLD, a project 
that raised the bar for trap’s 
musical standard just a few weeks 
prior. (Perhaps Thug could benefit 
from Scott’s eclectic production 
process.)
While the actual content of the 
project is nothing special, Thug did 
manage to bring progress in one 
regard: women. Trap has always 
been and still is a genre dominated 
by men, often braggadociously 
rapping about how they mistreat 
women. Thus, female features 
are almost unheard of. On Slime, 
however, three tracks feature 
female artists, and not in the 
conventional way with sung hooks 
in a pretty voice to counterbalance 
the masculinity of the verses; these 
female rappers have full verses 
and rap about fucking shit up 
and making money behind heavy 
autotune. So, even with a sonically 
lackluster project, Thug continues 
to make some waves. 
Realistically, 
the 
mixtape 
does have a handful of bangers. 
Just because it sounds outdated 
and simple doesn’t mean it won’t 
augment your party playlists; 
“Audemar,” “Chanel (Go Get It)” 
and “Scoliosis” are highlights 
that provide the raw vocals and 
hype-inducing flow that Thug fans 
crave. Still, in the broader lens of 
music as something that breathes 
and grows with time, it seems 
like the rest of the trap world has 
finally caught up with Young Thug, 
leaving Slime Language stale and 
unoriginal. We’ll just have to wait 
for the next slimey project to see if 
Thugger can still turn heads.

Newest Thug is mediocre

MIKE WATKINS
Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC REVIEW

What 
happens 
when 
you 
combine all the underutilized token 
Asians from sitcom television into 
one movie? Pure comedy gold. 
From established actors like 

Ken 
Jeong 
(“Community”) 
and Michelle Yeoh (“Star Trek: 
Discovery”) to the up-and-coming 
Awkwafina 
(“Ocean’s 
8”) 
to 
misused supporting characters like 
Ronny Chieng (“The Daily Show”) 
and Jimmy O. Yang (“Silicon 
Valley”) to the face of a new era of 
Asian-American representation on 
television, Constance Wu (“Fresh 
Off the Boat”) — “Crazy Rich 
Asians” has them all.
The movie, based on the 2013 
book trilogy by Kevin Kwan, 
follows Rachel Chu (Wu) as she 
accompanies her boyfriend Nick 
Young (Henry Golding, “A Simple 
Favor”) to his home country of 
Singapore. She soon realizes Nick 
is not your average New Yorker, 
but the heir-apparent to one of the 

richest real estate families in Asia. 
Traditional and modern values 
clash as Rachel, an ABC (American-
born-Chinese), tries to fit in with 
Nick’s family — particularly his 
intimidating 
mother, 
Eleanor 
(Yeoh).
At this point in Hollywood 
representation, the main focus still 
lies on undermining stereotypes, 
rather than making race secondary 
to the characters themselves. In 
an ideal world, an Asian character 
would just be a character, free of 
the burden to hold up a positive, 
progressive image of their race.
Promoting 
diversity 
as 
the 
selling point of a movie returns the 
target audience to white people or, 
in the case of “Crazy Rich Asians,” 
all non-Asian demographics. 
While non-Asians or non-Asian-
Americans might view some of 
the caricatured supporting cast 
in the Kevin Kwan adaptation as 
defying stereotypes, this is not 
quite the case. Instead, the film 
mines deeper caves for stereotypes, 
some recognizable only to those 
who have been immersed in Asian 
culture and heritage. 
Of course, stereotypes are a 
trademark necessity of filling out 
the cast of a romantic comedy, 
where screentime for sidekicks 
are minimal and, as a result, 
characterization 
as 
well. 
The 

flaws of “Crazy Rich Asians” has 
everything to do with the rom-com 
format itself and not the fact that 
Asians helm every aspect of the 
film. 
There’s the predictable plot, 
outlandish 
romantic 
gestures, 
refusal to engage in serious politics, 
but also the impressive aspects of 
rom-coms: Gatsby-esque set design, 
believable chemistry between the 
leads and zingy one-liners.
“Crazy Rich Asians” feels at 
times like an opportunity for non-
Asians to venture into an “exotic” 
world Hollywood has ignored 
since its beginnings. However, the 
all-Asian cast in a blockbuster film 
made buying a ticket to this film 
still incredibly emotional. 
Reviewers 
(percentage-wise 
mostly 
non-Asian) 
walked 
on 
eggshells around this film, refusing 
to strike down the issues with 
rom-coms in fear of undermining 
the importance of this turn in 
representation. 
For people looking for a solid 
rom-com, “Crazy Rich Asians” 
delivers, 
not 
buckling 
under 
the pressure of a history of 
underrepresentation. 
However, 
in terms of the quality of the film 
itself, “Crazy Rich Asians” is just 
another rom-com, though that may 
be its greatest accomplishment to 
on the road to equality.

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ soars

MEGHAN CHOU
Daily Arts Writer

Warner Bros.

FILM REVIEW

Slime Language

Young Thug

300 Entertainment

“Crazy Rich Asians”

State Theater

Warner Bros.

