YG I Got Issues Review: Putting the Toxic in Masculinity

YG’s sixth studio album, I Got Issues, finds the Compton rapper getting defensive before the first track’s drum kick even drops. “Bitch, I got issues/Still thuggin’, they say the streets gon’ get you,” he declares on “Issues,” stressing the “-ues” before quickly barreling into the next line with little regard for harmonic grace. This sudden flow switch-up, which first sounds like YG’s trying to cram in an extra two syllables to fit with the song’s rhyme structure, outlines the potential vigor of his cocky raps when he’s upholding his honor, protecting his family’s good name, or, especially, mocking his many enemies.

Whenever he’s feeling especially vicious toward his adversaries, YG can seem like a schoolyard bully—one who can turn a vulgar insult, such as “Ballin’ on you fuckin’ dummies” on the frantic “Scared Money,” into a catchy hook. On “Drink to This,” he compares his “big-lipped” critics to comedian and TV host Steve Harvey, then when he imagines confronting them, they immediately apologize in an emasculated, childish dialect, pronouncing “sorry” like “sowwy.” The menacing “Maniac,” with its sinister looping G-Funk bassline, radiates even more hostility; when YG callously claims to have kidnapped a rival’s girlfriend and never gave her back, there’s a bite to the assertion’s delivery that makes it almost believable.

The methodically detailed “How to Rob a Rapper” serves as an instructional guide for up-and-coming thieves operating in the greater Los Angeles area, suggesting that they scour every local rapper’s over-sharing social media posts, find one that foolishly discloses their location, and head on over—just so long as they’re not in Beverly Hills, since you don’t want to catch a case there. The same type of location-based specificity is found on the morbid closer “Killa Cali,” albeit in terms of those who “got killed here” in YG’s home state: He commemorates Pop Smoke and Nipsey Hustle but abandons the song’s concept after including the likes of 2Pac—he reminds us that Pac was killed in Las Vegas, which is “basically” the Golden State in YG’s eyes—and Suge Knight, who’s very much alive but merely “blackballed.”

But the biggest receiver of YG’s most adamant vitriol continues to be women—or, more accurately, the countless number of “bitches” who he believes have plotted to ruin his life. Save for his daughters and mother, YG largely treats women like disposable objects throughout I Got Issues. On the noxious “No Love,” he cuts right to the chase: “Let me tell you a story about this bitch I used to fuck.” In YG’s world, is there any other type? She’s revealed to be a conniving gold-digger, one who’s replaced by YG with an R&B singer who can only sing using Auto-Tune—an extremely rich attitude to take, as YG sings a forced interpolation of Bobby Bland’s “Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City” on the chorus with a vocoder effect on his voice.

Even when YG is effectively able to place his misogyny within a more acceptable context, like cussing out the supposedly negligent mother of his child on “Baby Mama,” his venom lacks creativity. He barks at her to clean the kitchen, laughs at her general appearance, and implies that her best days are behind her. Nothing he lobs her way is intimate enough to feel truly spiteful; the worst thing YG can conjure up is that she let their daughter’s hair get nappy.

Tracks like these—and even ostensibly romantic cuts like “Go Dumb” and “Toxic,” both of which are equally as demeaning to their subjects—obfuscate the poignancy of YG’s attempts at sentiment. On the spare “No Weapon,” he lays out how, while he’s a man of defiant conviction and integrity, he’s got to be “more” for his daughters, a message so pure of intent that not even a clunky, laborious guest verse from Nas could ruin it. Besides, YG’s own brand of toxic masculinity is already doing that plenty.