Young Nudy flows across tracks like water, the rhythm of his verses shifting almost imperceptibly as he finds and fills in every crevice and fault line in a given beat. While the Atlanta native has little interest in ostentatious tics or tricks, this adaptiveness has made him one of the most quietly inventive rappers of his generation, a constant source of new cadences, a writer who is at turns slyly funny and surprisingly menacing. And for a rapper who seems to be in a constant state of evolution, his solo debut, the 2016 mixtape Slimeball, presented him almost fully formed. Born at the tail end of 1992—just a couple months after his cousin, 21 Savage—Nudy was raised in East Atlanta, where he immersed himself in the hip-hop that was coming to dominate the city at that time. In addition to other Southern legends (he borrowed the buoyancy from turn-of-the-century Cash Money Records artists like Juvenile and the rest of the Hot Boys, and is a devoted fan of Memphis duo 8Ball & MJG), Atlantans like Gucci Mane provided Nudy with a blueprint for hip-hop that was playful while still projecting an icy aloofness. That sense of tonal balance ensured that, from his earliest days in the booth, Nudy’s records sounded distinctly his own. After being featured on 21’s “Air It Out” in 2015, Nudy got to work distilling his style into a mixtape that would put him on an equal plane with his cousin. A close relationship with the producer Pi’erre Bourne helped furnish Slimeball with beats that turn atonal odds and ends into lush beds of sound. Take the vibrating “Jugg,” which pushes Nudy into his most delirious, swaggering mode. The horror movie motif that would come to define Nudy’s album artwork and promotional materials is well deployed here, a reminder that the grisliest violence and most upsetting jump scares are being orchestrated with a single goal in mind.