He missed two photoshoots for a Complex magazine cover last year, eventually showing up at the third and answering six questions with two-word answers: “The quickest interview in history,” according to the writer. I sense she has had a few issues in the past. “It might not be a traditional interview,” warns his publicist. The plan today is to catch Thug for a few hours before his London debut to get a sense of the man. His surrealist imagery is compounded by his music videos, which combine hip-hop cliches with Lynchian dream sequences – his recent video for Best Friend features Thug walking in on himself making out with his female alter ego, before his ghost sits down to a breakfast cereal dinner party. He talks about his own beauty (“I’m a fuckin’ stunna, ass big, Hummer”) and outlandish personality (“I’m an earthling in disguise”) in a way no other rapper would. His latest mixtape, Slime Season, presents an almost sci-fi version of rap excess. You might expect this seeming disjunction to influence his music, but his lyrics rarely ponder the realities of his complex existence, instead portraying a bombastic and often surreal version of his life.
Rumours about his sexuality abound, but Thug says he is neither gay nor straight. He doesn’t pretend to have left gang life behind – on his outro to a Dej Loaf track released last year he snarks, “As a matter of fact, I’m one of the biggest Bloods in fucking America” – but these days he is probably better known for his gender-fluidity, recently photographed in a tutu, a lace floral Gucci top and a leopard-print dress. He is one of the most interesting characters in hip-hop today, seemingly drunk on his own eccentricity. All of that might create the picture of a typical gangster-turned-rapper but, in fact, nothing about Thug (which is apparently what even his closest friends call him) is typical.