the word has a long history...
I like Tupac's description:
When Tupac Shakur popularized the phrase “thug life” in the early 1990s, writes Michael Jeffries in
Thug Life: Race, Gender, and the Meaning of Hip-Hop, “the concept of the thug underwent a...transformation, from signifying disgust, rebellion, and nihilism to evoking coolness and power.”
Notably, Shakur used “thug life” as an acronym for “This Hate U Gave Lil’ Infants F**k Everybody.”
(On “Thug 4 Life,” he raps: “Thug muthaf**kas don’t die, we get high, we multiply, muthaf**ka!”)
https://www.newsweek.com/brief-history-word-thug-326595
So it looks like a word that the hip hop culture has appropriated and the rest of society is now forbidden to use it .. or be labeled a racist if you do.
Questlove GomezVerified account@questlove
"
Thugs" = N*ggers #KnowTheCode