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One Video: Family Don’t Matter by Young Thug

One Video: Family Don’t Matter by Young Thug

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Every week, a slew of new music videos hits the web. Watching them at your desk is not time theft because you deserve it; think of it as a nice reward for surviving another work week. But what if you don’t have time to watch every video — maybe you have a deadline, a hungry pet, or other grown-up concerns. In consideration of your schedule, Lizzie and Kaitlyn bring you a series called One Video. Each week we’ll tell you “one video” you need to watch, why, and for how long.

This week’s video: “Family Don’t Matter” by Young Thug ft. Millie Go Lightly

Lizzie: This week, like every week now, has lasted an entire calendar year, except with way fewer music videos than you might expect in that time frame. Taylor Swift dropped another lyric vid, Charlie Puth did whatever it is Charlie Puth does, and MGMT came back. But then we got this video for Young Thug’s country experiment off his most recent album, Beautiful Thugger Girls, and we remembered that the end of the year is also a good time to tell your loved ones that you love them via a series of elaborate gestures.

Kaitlyn: During this week’s One Video selection process, I think I did an okay job pretending I didn’t have a personal stake in which way the chips fell. “Who cares? Just pick a video, Lizzie!” That was me. But the truth is that Beautiful Thugger Girls is absolutely the best thing that happened to me this entire year — in spite of the fact that I was intimidated by a bunch of wasted frat bros at a live performance of it in June, which was irritating because I’m no longer in college and because this album is about and for women. Boys are very bad at reading the room, if you haven’t heard.

After a long week during which a handful of shitty men were served their just deserts, this music video is appropriate because it represents a just dessert for the women of the web. Thank you, Young Thug, and thank you for this donut and fork.

Who are Young Thug and Millie Go Lightly?

Lizzie: Young Thug is a rapper from Atlanta whose first major label contract with an Atlantic Records imprint gave him a measly advance of just $15,000, while his entire contract was reportedly worth just $30,000, according to BuzzFeed. Since his first mixtape, I Came From Nothing, was released in 2011, Thugger has released 17 mixtapes, and made way more money. Beautiful Thugger Girls is about falling in love.

Kaitlyn: Millie Go Lightly is a 23-year-old British singer who was relatively unknown before she appeared on Beautiful Thugger Girls. She helped write “Family Don’t Matter,” and she was also featured on another track, “She Wanna Party.” After this album came out, I followed her on Instagram and would recommend the experience. She has some good content and she loves Young Thug.

What’s special about “Family Don’t Matter” by Young Thug ft. Millie Go Lightly:

Lizzie: Well, for one, Young Thug actually showed up to this video shoot, unlike the video for his 2016 song “Wyclef Jean,” in which the director was forced to imagine a world with shadowy Young Thug stand-ins.

And unlike “Wyclef Jean”’s classic “cars and bikinis” theme, “Family Don’t Matter” is set on a farm, where Young Thug apparently owns and cares for a stable of horses. The horses are also a form of transportation for Thug, who takes his beloved on a nighttime carriage ride to a feast laid out on bales of hay.

Kaitlyn: What’s special about “Family Don’t Matter” is that it features a beautiful song that makes me feel amazing inside, but also that it looks like a clip from The Bachelor. Young Thug woos his love interest with a rose, a donut, a candlelit barn, a private music performance, red wine, and hand-holding. He’s wearing a positively ridiculous and gorgeous sweater that former Bachelor, notorious yarn enthusiast, and possible sociopath Nick Viall would likely be jealous of.

Also, the horses in this video have exceptionally expressive eyes if you ask me — a young woman who once took horseback riding lessons for two years but quit because she found most horses to be sort of bland and unfeeling and never felt the mystical horse-girl bond promised to her by The Saddle Club novels or the Australian television program The Saddle Club.

How long everyone should watch “Family Don’t Matter” by Young Thug ft. Millie Go Lightly:

Lizzie: Whole thing! Fudge it.

Kaitlyn: Lizzie is right. And when you’re done with this video, maybe you’ll feel moved to listen to “Me Or Us,” a cozy, croony guitar ballad from Beautiful Thugger Girls that features a sample from the 2005 Bright Eyes song “First Day of My Life.” This advice, of course, is only for women, while men should think about spending their afternoon doing something different and not fun.