This Atlanta Rapper May Be The Next Lil Wayne

Don't be fooled by the slurring and sloshing. Young Thug is a bizarrely talented lyricist and rap's next big thing.

These days, Lil Wayne doesn't rap like he used to.

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But in Atlanta, there's a 21-year-old rapper who can wildly contort his voice. He goes by Young Thug.

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Young Thug was raised in Atlanta's Jonesboro South housing projects.

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He says he learned to play with language from all the people on nearby Cleveland Avenue, and from having “dated girls from different species.”

His first three tapes, released from 2011 to 2012, are called I Came From Nothing 1, 2 and 3.

He's got style. Sometimes, he wears a pink beret.

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In 2013, he released a great tape on Gucci Mane's record label, called 1017 Thug.

"Thug is one of the most talented rappers I ever met," Gucci said in June. "I chased down that boy down and told him like, You’re one of the most talented people I’ve ever worked with."

He can mimic pretty much any voice. Sometimes, on his own songs, he sounds like he's a couple different people.

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Gucci Mane explains: "He’s got a distinctive way of how he changes his voice up. You can hear a verse and then the chorus and you’ll think it’s two different artists, but it’ll be Thug on the same song. He’ll feature on somebody else’s song and do a hook, and it’ll sound like he’s a Jamaican. He’ll do another song and he’ll flip the whole style again and go fast."

Meanwhile, his wordplay defies traditional logic.

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This run, from "Why Order," demands close attention: I'm a Seahawk in a flying coupe/ I'll Seattle you I'll paddle you/ Like a biker seat I'll saddle you/ Like an earthquake shake salad you.

He raps giddily over a weird lounge beat on "YRN," a collaboration with buzzing Atlanta trio Migos.

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Find that, along with dizzying Thug solo track "Danny Glover" on the compilation tape Lobby Runners, released on Christmas.

But the real reason Young Thug gets compared to Lil Wayne is...

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"The fact that we're both geniuses, that's probably why we get compared. I don't know any other reason, we don't look anything alike," he told a reporter.