Young Thad just finished his first track with Zaytoven and Gucci Mane called “Put Me in the Kitchen”. The track is about gettin’ in and doing your thing, which is exactly Young Thad’s approach to the rap game. He brings a new twist to the table by using rap as inspiration to help people “do more than drop cars and buy jewelry” and ultimately give back to his community. Thad is from Prichard, Alabama, where 35% of the population lives below the poverty line. “Prichard is an all-black community. Black police officers. People don’t want to come to Prichard. There ain’t no nice houses like that. Prichard has a lot of different little hoods. There are so many hoods in Prichard. It’s full of people who just aren’t that fortunate. But I love Pritchard because you get to laugh every day.” I asked him how he got into this rap game and he told me about his childhood. Rap, apparently, is a way of life for the youth of Prichard that gives them hope for a brighter future. “Everybody used to freestyle in high school with their partners before we even thought going into the studio. I just decided to do it for real for real. I was always into music. I grew up with [artists]. I like to follow peoples’ music, you know?” A chance encounter with Rich Boy lead Thad to a full-time music career. One of Thad’s biggest influences include Masta P. “I grew up listening to Cash Money and Masta P, mainly. And then, you know, Lil Flip, Dj Skrew… all the Texas music. Everybody in Alabama grew up on Texas music. Fat Pat… that’s the whole skrew area. We had a couple of rappers in Mobile who were back and forth with them. Mobile and Pritchard. The music just kinda went from there.” Now, it seems, the people of Prichard will be following Young Thad. He just dropped his first mixtape with DJ Smallz which features “Put Me in the Kitchen” and 9 other singles. But I had to ask him the question that’s on everybody’s mind, which is… “What is it like to work with Gucci Mane?” “Fun and fun and fun. That shit was fun as hell, man! You know when you go into the studio with some people and you feel pressure? Shoot, not me! He was just so real. That’s just how it was. The whole time they were drinking and having fun. It was just like being around my homeboys.” Does he see more work with Gucci in his future? Hopefully, yes. What he sees first is to make more mixtapes. He wants to jump in that “kitchen” and see if everybody likes him from there. “I can’t predict my future. I can only say what I want to happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to happen like that. I’m excited, though, because I want everybody to hear me and see me… I already know it’s going to be over from there. That’s just how I feel. I’m going to let them talk, talk, talk it up. [They’re going to say] ‘he’s just stepping himself up and he looks great!’ I know I can inspire a lot of people to do great things.” Inspiration is what seems to drive Thad to a great professional career and an opportunity to give back to the community he loves. Even though Thad can’t predict the future of his rap game, he knows that community service will be part of his life. “I plan on doing community work. I want to do that. Uniform giveaways, you know what I’m saying? I just want to do something positive because it’s the right thing to do and I know everybody will come out and support me for that.” I wondered what happened to Thad, who grew up around so much poverty and so little opportunity, to inspire him to want to do more with his life than be a rapper. Apparently he had a decent support system of family when he grew up. “I got my mom and Aunt Ruby… My father is deceased. He died when I was 13. I’m the youngest out of the three. I have 2 older brothers. One of them goes to Jackson State in Mississippi. I have another brother and I don’t know where he’s at. He’s out in the streets somewhere. I don’t talk to him like that. I have 2 more people that I talk to who I call my brothers, too.” It’s unfortunate that one of his brothers is going to miss out on the adventure Young Thad is about to experience because he seems to have the right idea about life. Rather than constantly staying in the streets, he loves to vacation overseas. “Man, I already so stuff overseas. That’s the funnest thing ever. Tell everybody to get their passport and get out there. I have a couple spots I’ve been to. Dominican Republic. I like to have fun. I want to live my life. Have fun, live your life. Do more than drop cars and buy jewelry. Fly around the world or something. Do something big. That’s having fun right there. That’s something you can always remember. And there are so many girls out there. You can say, ‘I get way more girls than you get!’ (Ladies, he is looking for the educated type.) We expect to see a lot of big things out of this man, especially because he keeps such good company. He hopes to grow as an artist and “get to a point where people will have no choice but to work with me.” Right now he’s enjoying his shine and having fun, which is what this rap game is supposed to be all about.
YOUNG THAD
FT.
WAKA FLOCKA FLAME
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(prod.by zaytoven)