Barter 6

The cover of Barter 6 shows Young Thug posing nude against a flat red background, with the title lettering placed low in the frame. It was shot by the photographer Sandy Kim, known for her raw, intimate pictures, and it was her first rap cover. Thug's team contacted her, and she said much of the concept came from Thug himself.

Kim told Complex how the shoot came together. When she asked Thug if he would get naked, he replied, "Fuck no, I'm not getting naked, you get naked!" So she did. "Artists should totally be down to commit to the vision they're asking for, so I got naked and then we shot it," she said, adding that his team was "shooting dice on set." Asked about the suggestive placement of the type, she said, "I think you are meant to [infer] phallic imagery, definitely."

The image was first unveiled as the cover of Carter 6, a title that borrowed the numbering of Lil Wayne's Tha Carter series at the height of Wayne's dispute with Birdman. Wayne mocked rappers who "pose naked on their motherfucking album covers." Under threat of legal action, Thug renamed the tape Barter 6, swapping C for B in the manner of the Bloods, and kept the photograph. In 2023 Lil Uzi Vert recreated the cover for Barter 16, released on Thug's birthday. The original came out on 17 April 2015.