Young Thug Used His Summer Smash Return To Debut A New Song

Over the weekend, Young Thug made his return to the stage (at least, Stateside) with a crowd-pleasing performance at Lyrical Lemonade’s Summer Smash festival in Chicago. As it’s been a few years since he was last able to perform for a crowd, he gave festival goers a fun surprise in the form of a new song, presumably from his upcoming return album, Uy Scuti. He was joined for the performance by fellow Atlanta artist Ken Carson, suggesting a new direction for the genre-bending trap pioneer. The new song was, of course, captured by phones and posted online, so you can check it out here.

Thug announced the new album in April, teasing the project with a Coachella billboard and launching a website to offer merch and media. Since then, he’s released a new song, “Money On Money” featuring Future, his second new single since being released from jail. The first was also a Future collaboration, with both appearing on Lil Baby’s “Dum Dumb & Dumber.”

Thug was released from jail last November after pleading guilty to racketeering in exchange for time served and a lengthy probation sentence. His plea deal came after one of Georgia’s longest criminal trials, which was marked by controversy, both for prosecutors’ execution of the case, and for the use of his lyrics as “evidence” that he was the leader of a criminal conspiracy.