Flouting hip-hop conventions while defying gender and sexuality stereotypes, Young Thug has been one of the most distinctive contemporary rap artists since attaining his chart debut with "Stoner" (2014). The eccentric rappers first of many gold- and platinum-certified recordings arrived amid a barrage of mixtapes that led to the Top Ten entries JEFFERY (2016) and Beautiful Thugger Girls (2017), and eventually his chart-topping debut album, So Much Fun (2019). A keen collaborator, Thug has been featured on dozens of tracks, including pop hits such as s "Havana," Childish Gambinos Grammy-winning "This Is America," and Post Malones "Goodbyes," and he has hit the upper reaches of the charts with the co-headlining commercial mixtapes Super Slimey (with ) and Slime & B (with Chris Brown).
An Atlanta native, Young Thug (born Jeffery Lamar Williams) released three volumes of his mixtape series I Came from Nothing before joining s crew in late 2012. His mixtape 1017 Thug followed in early 2013, featuring the quirky street single "Picacho." Later in the year, his "Stoner" single appeared, but it didnt catch fire until 2014, when an authorized remix featuring opened the floodgates for a series of unauthorized remixes from artists like , , and . The original track peaked that April and was eventually certified gold by the RIAA.
That same year, Thug signed to , the -distributed imprint co-founded by Lyor Cohen and Kevin Liles, and continued recording mixtapes. His first release for the label, 2015s Barter 6, climbed to number 22 on the Billboard 200 album chart. He began 2016 with Im Up, the first of many mixtapes that year, which debuted at the same position as Barter. Months later, he dropped the Top Ten hit Slime Season 3. Before his next release, he was awarded a platinum certification for his 2015 track "Best Friend." At the end of the summer, he unexpectedly issued his third tape, originally titled No, My Name Is Jeffery and changed a week later to simply JEFFERY. With its provocative cover art and concept (each track was named after one of Thugs idols), JEFFERY featured reggae/dub flourishes and appearances by and , , , and .
Veering unexpectedly into new sonic territory, Beautiful Thugger Girls arrived in June 2017. Though it flirted with country and pop, the set retained Thugs trademark weirdness at the fore. In 2017, Thug issued a pair of collaborations, first with producer on the Young Martha EP, which saw release that September, and then with on the October mixtape Super Slimey, and he was also featured on s number one pop hit "Havana." The single "Ride on Me," featuring , arrived in early 2018 ahead of the release of the Hear No Evil EP, which was issued that April. After he appeared on another number one hit, Childish Gambinos "This Is America" (subsequently the Song of the Year winner at the 61st Grammy Awards), he issued the compilation Slime Language, which featured Lil Duke, , and . The next month, Thug issued his third EP, On the Rvn. Debuting in the Top 20 of both the Billboard 200 and the R&B/hip-hop charts, the set featured guests and , as well as , who gave Thug his seal of approval on the "Rocket Man"-sampling "High."