Much to the annoyance of the chin stroking traditionalists out there, contemporary hip hop is drenched in melody. Gone are the days of hookless cypher sessions where consciously-driven lyrics hop over turntablist beats. Heavyweights like Rae Sremmurd, Future and Rich Homie Quan are dominating the airwaves and becoming - to many - the sound of rap music in 2015. For purists, it is everything hip hop isn't; harmonious and dancefloor-friendly.
The sound of Young Thug's indecipherable auto-tuned warbling has become the go-to ammunition for these "respect-the-classics" traditionalists. His manic melodies with beats from producers like Metro Boomin, Zaytoven, Dun Deal and London on da Track have become the default targets for patrons of J Dilla Changed My Life nights. Kansas-based producer Amherst has fully embraced the tuneful chirruping flow of Thug and upped the ante by taking him to the disco for a four track EP 'Disco Thuggin', which you can hear in its glorious entirety right here.
'Disco Thuggin' was released by Amherst at the end of last year and it places four of Thug's biggest smash hits (including "Lifestyle" with Rich Homie Quan under the Rich Gang banner) against the barefaced brass and glitter balls of disco. The result is a sound where the melody comes even further to the fore. The swallowed flow of "Givenchy" (above) gets the backing vocalists it never knew it needed. "Lifestyle" is gifted a string section, "Danny Glover" is joined by a plucky guitar refrain and the air horn from "About the Money" meets some serious brass.
For many, including us, it's a party hybrid that only dreams are made of, sipping lean with glittery sheen. Between repeat listens we reached out to Amherst to find out what it takes to get Young Thug to Studio 54.
What was it about Young Thug that made you want to remix it? Why does he work so well with disco?
I just makes sense to me I guess. It's so weird to me that a lot of people turned this into one of those "why does this work so well?? Nice job Internet xD" things. I'm a big fan of Young Thug and honestly I think the guy is a melodic genius. That's why he can sound as weird as he does and still have radio hits. Dude is a genius, straight up. When you strip away the trap beats you're left with melodies that would make just as much sense in a disco track as they would in any other pop music context.
Are there any other rappers who you'd like to place in a different genre? Any specific combinations?
A while back I made this remix of Honest by Future where I put his vocals over an instrumental that sampled American Football pretty heavily, so I've played with it before. I've always thought ilovemakonnen would sound really good as the singer in a post-punk band, but I'm not trying to make that EP anytime soon.
Did the EP happen by accident or did the idea come first?
The EP definitely happened on accident. The remixes started as something I was doing to keep me sane during finals week last semester. I just sat down one night and started making them, I probably had the basic idea for 5 or 6 remixes done within 24 hours. Honestly I probably failed a class almost entirely because of that EP. The idea isn't really anything super unique though, there are several people on soundcloud who have done disco remixes of trap rap before. Skylar Spence (FKA Saint Pepsi) and Lancaster_ just to name a few.
Has Thug reached out to you at all? If not, how do you think he'd respond?
No, I wish though, I would love to work with him but I would be really surprised if that happened. I have no idea what he would even think of the EP. Hopefully he would dig it, but I wouldn't really be surprised if he didn't.
What sort of stuff do you listen to?
I listen to a lot of music that I'm trying to sample, so a lot of funk, disco, and soul. I try to listen to a wide variety, but I probably spend the majority of my time listening to hip-hop. Lil Ugly Mane and Kanye are probably my all-time favourites. I'm a fan of several bands on Deathwish records too, so Converge, Loma Prieta, stuff like that.
In terms of disco, which other artists' vocals do you think would work?
Honestly, a ton of rappers that are out right now would probably work really well over disco. People like Young Thug, Rich Homie Quan, & Rae Sremmurd seem like they're more interested in using their voice as an instrument than they are in using their voice to convey a clear meaning. That makes them alienating to a lot of more "traditional" hip-hop fans, because it's all about the melodies instead of the lyrics. That's what makes them sound so good in a pop context though.
How should people dance to this? Like they are listening to Thug or they are listening to disco?
I can't really have a say in that, just whatever feels right to you I guess. I feel like a lot of current hip hop is analogous to disco, a lot of it is definitely made with dancing/clubs in mind.
Disco culture is different to hip hop culture in many ways. (i.e. All loving vs. rivalry). Which message wins on Disco Thuggin?
The rivalry thing is definitely an element of hip-hop but I think the media and the internet plays that up a lot. I think the internet has brought a lot of scenes together and made geography less of a factor, which is cool, but the internet also leads to a lot of stuff getting blown out of proportion. There were probably some great disco beefs that we're never gonna hear about just because twitter didn't exist in the 70's though so who knows.
Follow Amherst on Soundcloud // Twitter.
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