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Rapper Young Thug, accused by prosecutors of co-founding a criminal street gang responsible for violent crimes and using his songs and social media to promote it, is set to go to trial starting Monday.
The Atlanta-based artist, whose given name is Jeffery Lamar Williams, was charged along with more than two dozen other people in a sprawling indictment last May, with more charges added in a second indictment in August. Fellow rapper Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, was also charged.
Young Thug, 31, began rapping as a teenager and has become tremendously successful—performing around the world and starting his own record label, Young Stoner Life or YSL, where he serves as CEO.
But prosecutors say YSL also has a darker connotation—a violent street gang called Young Slime Life founded by Young Thug and two others in 2012 and affiliated with the national Bloods gang. The alleged gang members named in the indictment are accused of committing violent crimes—including murders, shootings and carjackings—to collect money for the gang, burnish its reputation and expand its power and territory.
The indictment includes rap lyrics that prosecutors allege are overt acts “in furtherance of the conspiracy,” including a line from a song they say Young Thug released on YouTube: “I’m in the VIP and I got that pistol on my hip, you prayin that you live I’m prayin that I hit.” Another of his lyrics quoted in the indictment says, “I never killed anybody but I got something to do with that body.”
The original indictment charged 28 people with conspiracy to violate Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations, or RICO, law and also included other charges against many of them.
