Too Much Slime, Not Enough Language

Believe it or not, I like Young Thug. I became a fan much later in his career than most, but once things finally clicked for me, I found myself enjoying Young Thug a lot more than I had for years. All that said, the feeling doesn’t really extend to the YSL crew for me quite as much — and especially not across the two-hour runtime of Slime Language 3.

Starting with some of the biggest flaws: two hours is just too much. Not only is it two-plus hours, but it’s spread across 41 songs. There are very few artists who can pull off an album that long with that many song changes, and the YSL crew isn’t on that list. The first disc was pretty rough for me. The production was pretty bad and only highlighted YSL’s flaws, since it carried almost no weight. The two worst songs for me were “Function” and “Wait for It,” both of which bring an early-2010s Young Money type of sound that I absolutely hate.

Disc 2 thankfully brought an uptick in quality, with the production being noticeably better. That’s not to say it’s a good disc or that it evens things out, but it is an improvement. One thing I appreciate about this crew album is that Young Thug is present heavily throughout Slime Language 3. I like seeing an album like this have the figurehead stay active and present instead of taking a back seat. There are a bunch of features all over the album that range from solid to outright bad, with artists like Lil Baby, Travis Scott, Trippie Redd, Jorjiana, YUME, Future, Quavo, Skrilla, and more spread across Slime Language 3. I can’t say there are any big highlight moments or songs — just a breath of relief when Disc 2 wasn’t as bad as Disc 1.

This album was on a path to being one of the worst of the year. Thankfully, it balanced out enough to land around average. I expect and want more from Young Thug, but not much more from the rest of YSL and many of the features. This could have been consolidated into one album that might have been good. But that’s not what we got.

Standout Tracks: Snakes In My Collar, Fernando Mendoza & Skyami

Album Rating: 👑👑👑👑👑 (5/10)