American rapper Young Thug regained his freedom on Thursday October 31 after pleading guilty to involvement in a gang, ending nearly two years of a sprawling trial for organized crime punctuated by theatrics. Real name Jeffery Lamar Williams, the 33-year-old artist was released, according to public documents from the prison system in the state of Georgia (southeast).
According to the New York Timeshe was sentenced to 15 years of probation in addition to the time served since his arrest in May 2022. The rapper was released after pleading guilty in a court in Atlanta, capital of Georgia, to six counts, including possession of drugs and firearms and engaging in organized criminal activity.
According to the prosecution, Young Thug's label, “Young Stoner Life Records”, was only a front for a branch of the “Bloods” gang identified as “Young Slime Life” or YSL, involved in murders, from drug trafficking and violent car thefts, of which the rapper was the leader. “The evidence will show you that YSL checks all the boxes of a criminal street gang,” prosecutor Adriane Love declared during her opening argument on November 23, 2023.
This interminable trial was punctuated by dramatic events. Judge Ural Glanville, who presided over a 10-month jury selection and then eight months of proceedings, had to recuse himself in July for arranging a meeting with prosecutors and a key witness, without informing all parties. He was replaced by another magistrate, Paige Reese Whitaker.
The trial of Young Thug, an avant-garde figure in Atlanta rap, was also marred by controversy. Prosecutors considered, as evidence of criminal acts, excerpts from songs by several artists, including Young Thug, a practice accused of being racist and an attack on artistic freedom by supporters of freedom of expression and professionals in the sector .
“We did not look for the words to solve the matter, we solved the matter and we found the words”had put the prosecutor into perspective. Adriane Love had read verses from the song Take it to trialand underlined their “uncanny resemblance to very true, very real, and very specific events”. Young Thug's lawyers sought to exclude those lyrics from the exhibits, saying the use of verses could unfairly influence jurors.
The arrest in May 2022 of the interpreter of Best Friend, Hot or Checkcrowned with a Grammy Award in 2019 as co-author of the “best song” of the year, This is Americahad been a shock to the influential Atlanta hip-hop scene. He was charged among 28 other people accused of belonging to the gang.
Born on August 16, 1991, Young Thug grew up in a poor suburb of Atlanta, this city in the southeast of the United States, which has become the nerve center of rap in recent years. As a teenager, he already imagined himself “future Lil Wayne”another rap star from the southern United States, whom he idolized before becoming one of his friends, then one of his rivals.
With his confusing rhymes and scrambled words, he stands out as one of the most emblematic representatives of the trap movement. Young Thug has collaborated with the biggest names in rap and pop, from Drake to Travis Scott, including Dua Lipa, Justin Bieber and Elton John.
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