Young Thug - BUSINESS IS BUSINESS | ALBUM COVER REVIEW
ENTRY 29: business in the front, business in the back
Explore the intersection of sights and sounds with GLASSES, a deep dive into the expansive world of music graphic design.
Thug speaks to us from behind bars, but looks at us from the courtroom.
The Album Cover
BUSINESS IS BUSINESS is Young Thug’s fourth studio album, and in an extremely dry release year, has caused a huge splash online.
Young Thug sort of has a famously stacked visual discography, so let’s place this new cover into context.
Almost all of his covers are notable in some way, my favourite being Slime Season 3 from 2016. I love the minimally illustrated portrait, depicting Thug with a gruesome eye injury dripping down his face. JEFFERY seems to be the general crowd favourite, with the dress even being displayed in a museum to this day.
With Thug being such a trailblazing voice in the story of hip-hop and trap specifically, his covers have all been quite odd and outstanding in their own ways. So Much Fun and Punk are both heavily designed and edited shots, whereas Barter 6 is a bit more “as is”, with the addition of some typography.
The BEAUTIFUL THUGGER GIRLS cover honestly needs to be studied, I actually cannot believe that artwork exists. It’s fucking crazy lol. Look at it closely if you never have, it basically comes back around to being incredible because of how fucked up it is.
BUSINESS is his first cover in black and white, and tonally, given the weight of the case on his group at the moment, this is easily his most dramatic, serious, and bleak cover. All his other covers have either this sort of fun energy, or at least are filled with life in some way. This new one however, well, just like the title implies, means business.
FORMAL BREAKDOWN
The cover depicts Thug and 8 other YSL members awaiting trial in an otherwise empty courtroom. I like that there’s no judge, jury, or audience in sight. It makes the shot much more alluring, adding a sense of dread and desolation. With a case of this magnitude, and with Young Thug’s mere stature in popular music, he knows that we’re watching.
By placing us, the viewer, in the seats of the courtroom’s public spectators, he’s made us a direct part of the case.
Thug as the obvious subject of the cover, is positioned just above centre. There are lots of beautiful lines of direction here, adding some great motion to the shot. Following the red arrows, we have a strong perspective leading our eyes right to Thug’s concerned gaze. Compositionally, it’s usually better to place something right above centre rather than perfect centre, as it creates a bit more visual tension and interest overall.
With a shot by Garfield Larmond, Thug has been photoshopped in, but pretty convincingly if you ask me. Other than this, there’s no graphic intervention here, no typography and no parental advisory sticker. They clearly wanted the image to speak for itself with zero interruption from anything potentially unnecessary. This was a good decision, as it really does reflect the sheer gravity of the situation he’s currently in.
With the buzz BUSINESS IS BUSINESS created, this album probably has the highest chance of being the first rap album of 2023 to go #1.
How do you guys feel about the cover and album? As always, sound off below!
This cover was hauntingly GOOD. I feel like it captures a very stern message before you even get into the music. No further notes on this one, the project definitely has some hits 💯