Offline, he met Rakim Mayers, a handsome wannabe rapper with a melodic voice, and saw star potential. On Tumblr, he was fomenting a post-regional movement, imbibing the distinct sounds of Memphis, Cleveland, and Houston. When Gotham’s rap scene started lagging at the end of the 2000s, that former apprentice, A$AP Yams, continued to work a ferocious hustle. In 2005, they gave an internship to an enterprising high school sophomore with a large birthmark on his face, allowing him to package their mixtapes and eavesdrop on their business conversations. In comparison to other prominent New York rap cliques, t he Diplomats were an accessible set. See Young Thug’s cartoonishly technical opener “Givenchy,” or Quan’s heartbreaking turn on “Freestyle” : “My baby mama just put me on child support/Fuck a warrant, I ain’t going to court/Don’t care what them white folks say/I just wanna see my lil boy go to school, be a man, and sign up for college.” Tha Tour, released under the nebulous Rich Gang banner, was littered with deeply felt moments like this: Thug pushing the outer boundaries of hip-hop vocals, and Quan seeing how deep they could cut.-Paul A. But in many ways, it was the most virtuosic rap record in years.
GIVENCHY RICH GANG THA TOUR PT 1 FULL
Tha Tour, Pt 1 debuted to relatively little fanfare in September 2014, full of promotional drops for a tour that would never materialize. “The EP me and Thug drop? Hardest duo since OutKast,” he claimed in a video interview. About five months before Tha Tour came out, Rich Homie Quan didn’t mince words.