“Business is business,” Young Thug says at the tail end of “Parade on Cleveland,” the opening track to his third studio album. Over a particularly hard-hitting 808, the Atlanta rapper proceeds to parrot the phrase 19 more times in under 20 seconds, turning a potentially prosaic statement into a thrilling declaration of intent.
Despite Young Thug’s continuing legal issues, when it comes to spitting wackadoodle lyrics set to quirky trap beats, it’s still business as usual for the MC. While Business Is Business’s foreboding black-and-white cover art acknowledges Young Thug’s current incarceration upfront, and “Parade on Cleveland” features a voice message from the rapper calling in from a Cobb County detention facility, nearly all of the material on the album was recorded before his 2022 imprisonment. This is made exceedingly clear on the jangly “Cars Bring Me Out,” which includes a dated reference to pandemic side hustles.
So perhaps it’s best to view Business Is Business as a compilation of sorts—a playlist curated by one of Thug’s longest and most fruitful collaborators, the white-hot Metro Boomin, who serves as the album’s executive producer. Aside from one obvious pop-oriented dud, the Dr. Luke-helmed “Went Thru It,” the album keeps things relatively simple, allowing Thugger ample room to contort his voice beyond recognition. The gothic “Money on the Dresser,” which is propelled by a scant yet potent combo of spooky organ keys and spastic synth lines, finds him lowering his voice until it sounds like he’s muttering to himself, while the hook on the chipper “Gucci Grocery Bag” resembles a crow croaking out its last caw.
Bizarre vocalic inflections and utterances aside, Business Is Business also abounds in Thug’s trademark outlandish songwriting quirks. You’re just as likely to get a song like “Abracadabra”—whose chorus is built around Thug hazily stressing each syllable in “abracadabra” and following it up with “Diamonds blingin’, you can’t see me like I’m Casper”—as you are a tuneful posse cut like “Wit Da Racks,” with the rapper’s proclamation that he’s going to pull up and “finger your cat” ranking as one of his more creative sex brags in a while.
The album is Thug’s first solo project since 2016’s Slime Season 3 to not incorporate labelmate Gunna in some capacity, and while the other guests aren’t slacking, especially two virtuoso spots from always reliable 21 Savage, the absence of their brotherly dynamic is palpable. BSlime and Lil Gotit each give impassioned performances on the uplifting “Hoodie”—the latter notably pays tribute to his older brother and fellow YSL signee, Lil Keed, who passed in 2022—but they’re easily overshadowed by Thug’s next-level showing, casually referencing Trayvon Martin’s hoodie one minute before reflecting on fraught parental relationships the next.
It’s perhaps unavoidable to consider Thug’s latest alongside Gunna’s A Gift & a Curse, given both their creators’ close working relationship and their nearly simultaneous release dates, but this album is the far more successful of the two. Even if one were to dismiss Business Is Business as nothing more than an anthology of loosies, Thug’s ostensible leftovers, like the brassy “Uncle M” and heart-wrenching ballads like “Jonesboro,” are still electric. In this sense, the album’s greatest strength is keeping things strictly business.
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