Cuts like I Came From Nothing 3’s “I Know Ya” sounded like mutant descendants of the booming, triumphant beats of 2000s Jeezy tapes and the gymnastic lyrical flights of the music Lil Wayne was releasing at the same time. Thug’s I Came From Nothing mixtapes filtered sharp melodic sensibilities and a natural gift for rhyming through a playful, warbling tone that coolly undercut his formidable talents with an air of levity. Thirty-year-old sometime Atlanta rap iconoclast Young Thug began releasing mixtapes around the same time Tyler and Keef were experiencing their early hits and controversies. Consider Tyler, the Creator, who saw criticism for the abrasive lyrics and corrosive sonics of releases like 2009’s Bastard and 2011’s Goblin, then spent the better part of a decade fine-tuning his music as streams and accolades racked up take Chief Keef, the Chicago rapper whose 2012 breakthrough was met with intense debates about morality in street rap closer in tone to the cultural mores of the late ’80s than the early ’10s. Stir the pot too much and the dish gets a little tougher to sell. Hip-hop appreciates change … up to a point. Young Thug is attempting a different kind of reign than the hip-hop A-listers he counts among his friends and collaborators now.