"With Them" isn't just a song. It’s a moment of cultural collision that basically cemented Young Thug as the heir apparent to the weirdest, most creative throne in hip-hop.
If you were watching the Yeezy Season 3 livestream at Madison Square Garden back in February 2016, you remember the chaos. Kanye West, surrounded by a sea of models in muted earth tones, reached over to a laptop and pressed play. The first thing the world heard wasn't a Kanye verse. It was a distorted, high-pitched "Yeah!" followed by a beat that sounded like it was falling down a flight of stairs in the best way possible.
That was Young Thug With Them. It was the intro to Slime Season 3, and for a lot of casual fans, it was the "aha!" moment.
People always talk about Thug’s vocal gymnastics, but on this track, he really pushes the boundaries of what a "rap performance" is supposed to look like. He's yelping. He's whispering. He's stretching vowels until they snap. It's reckless. It’s also incredibly calculated. Mike WiLL Made-It, the producer behind the boards, provided a skeleton of a beat that left just enough room for Thug to act as a human instrument.
Why With Them Young Thug Became a Turning Point
Before this track dropped, the narrative around Thugger was still pretty split. You had the old-school heads calling it "mumble rap" and the younger generation treating him like a prophet. But when Kanye West—the ultimate curator of "cool" at the time—hand-picked "With Them" to open his most ambitious public presentation, the conversation shifted.
It validated Thug's experimentalism.
The song starts with that iconic "Sheesh!" ad-lib. It’s high energy. It’s infectious. But if you actually sit down and try to transcribe the lyrics, you realize Thug is playing with phonetics more than poetry. He’s more interested in how the words feel against the bass than what they literally mean in a dictionary sense.
Honestly, that’s the genius of it. He talks about his crew, his wealth, and his status, but the delivery is so erratic that it feels brand new. He manages to make "I'm with them" sound like a threat and a celebration all at once.
The Production Secrets of Mike WiLL Made-It
We have to talk about the beat. Mike WiLL Made-It is a legend for a reason, but his work on "With Them" is particularly nasty. It’s stripped back. It doesn't rely on heavy melodies or lush orchestration. Instead, it’s all about the syncopation of the 808s.
The kick drum hits in places you don't expect. This forces Thug to find pockets in the rhythm that other rappers would completely miss. It’s a masterclass in collaboration.
- The bassline is muddy but precise.
- The "twangy" lead synth feels almost like a glitch in the software.
- The empty space is just as important as the noise.
Kanye reportedly loved the track so much that he was seen dancing like a maniac behind the soundboard while it played. There are rumors—some confirmed by engineers in the room—that Kanye was frantically trying to get Thug to finish the song just hours before the MSG show. That kind of frantic, last-minute energy is baked into the recording. You can hear the urgency. It sounds like it was recorded in a room filled with smoke and expensive sneakers.
Cultural Impact and the Slime Season Legacy
"With Them" served as the explosive opening for Slime Season 3, which many fans consider Thug’s most concise and "perfect" project. Unlike the sprawling Slime Season 1 or the moody Slime Season 2, the third installment was only eight tracks long. It was all killer, no filler.
And "With Them" was the spearhead.
It’s weird to think that in 2016, people were still debating if Young Thug was a "real" rapper. Today, his influence is everywhere. You hear his DNA in Lil Baby, Gunna, and basically every artist coming out of the YSL camp. But "With Them" remains a distinct touchstone because it captures Thug at his most feral. He wasn't the elder statesman yet. He was the disruptor.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Lyrics
There's a common misconception that Thug’s lyrics are just gibberish. On "With Them," he actually drops some incredibly clever lines if you’re paying attention. He mentions "Quavo" and "Offset" in ways that acknowledge the burgeoning dominance of the Migos, and he references high-fashion brands with the ease of someone who actually wears them, not someone just reading a catalog.
He’s bragging about his lifestyle, sure. But he's also documenting a very specific era of Atlanta's rise to the top of the global music food chain.
When he says "I'm with them," he’s not just talking about his friends. He’s talking about the elite. He’s talking about the innovators. He’s talking about the people who aren't afraid to look stupid while trying something new.
The Technical Evolution of Young Thug’s Flow
If you analyze the waveform of "With Them," you see these massive spikes and then total silence. Thug uses his voice like a percussion hit. He’ll go from a low-register mumble to a screeching high note in the span of two bars.
- The "intro" sets a false sense of security with a steady flow.
- The "bridge" breaks the rhythm entirely.
- The "hook" relies on repetition that burns itself into your brain.
This isn't accidental. Thug has been known to spend hours in the booth just "freestyling" sounds before he even puts words to them. He’s a sculptor of sound. By the time we get the finished version of With Them Young Thug, we’re hearing the result of a very specific, very weird creative process.
How to Appreciate "With Them" Today
Listening to this track in 2026 feels different. With everything that has happened with the YSL legal case and the shifts in the industry, "With Them" feels like a time capsule of a more optimistic era in trap music. It was a time of pure experimentation.
If you want to really "get" why this song matters, you have to stop looking for a traditional narrative. Don't look for a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Treat it like an abstract painting.
Focus on the textures. Listen to the way he says "Bicken Back Being Bool" (a play on Blood culture lingo). Notice how the beat seems to stop for a micro-second every time he says a certain syllable. It’s those tiny details that separate a "hit" from a piece of art.
Moving Forward with the Thugger Discography
If "With Them" is your entry point, your next move should be to look at how he evolved from this raw energy into the more melodic, "pop" sensibilities of Beautiful Thugger Girls.
- Compare "With Them" to "Check" (from Barter 6).
- Listen to how his voice aged and changed between 2016 and 2021.
- Watch the MSG footage again—it's on YouTube—and watch the crowd's reaction to that first beat drop.
You can’t understand modern rap without understanding Young Thug. And you can’t understand Young Thug without acknowledging the sheer, vibrating energy of "With Them." It remains a masterclass in how to grab the world’s attention by being unapologetically yourself, even if "yourself" is a guy yelping over a distorted 808 in the middle of a fashion show.
To truly grasp the impact of this track, listen to it on a high-quality sound system where the low-end frequencies aren't muffled. The song was designed to be felt in the chest, not just heard in the ears. Once you feel that kick drum hit during the first verse, the "weirdness" of the vocals starts to make perfect sense. It’s all one big, chaotic, beautiful rhythm.
Take a moment to dive into the rest of Slime Season 3 to see how "With Them" sets the tone for the entire project. The transition from that track into "Memo" is one of the smoothest sequences in his entire catalog. Pay attention to the ad-libs—they’re often more important than the actual verses in Thug’s world. They provide the emotional "color" to the black-and-white structure of the beat. By dissecting these layers, you’ll start to see why Thug isn't just a rapper, but a genuine composer of the trap era.
