The Blurry Line Between Rap Star and Crime Boss

Hi, this is Sydney Harper, and I help make the daily. One night, it's 10 p.m. My colleagues working on the next day's episode are looking for a speech, this piece of tape that they really need to make the episode sing. They've tracked it down to a university library, and that library happens to be close to my house. So I hop into a car, I head across town, I get to the library, they're about to close, I'm copying the tape, uploading it into my computer, sending it off to my colleagues working on the episode, it makes it into the show the next day, it really helps make it shine.

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Joe, tell us about this trial that began last week in Atlanta.

This is a crazy trial. You've probably heard of Fonny Willis. She's the district attorney in Fulton County, which covers a lot of Atlanta. And she's become a national figure over the last few months, largely because she brought a criminal racketeering case, or RICO, as it's more commonly known, against President Trump and his allies, like Rudy Giuliani.

We've covered it extensively on the show.

Right. And that's about their efforts in Georgia specifically to overturn the presidential election in 2020.. She's using that same legal strategy against criminal street gangs. And one in particular, she says, is run by Young Thug, or Jeffrey Williams, who's one of the most successful and influential rappers of his time.

And that's what puts him in your world, because you are a music writer at The Times.

Yes. I have been covering music here for 10 years. And because of that timing, that means I've covered a lot of rap music. We are in an era where hip hop is the most popular genre in the country and probably the world. And Atlanta is really its beating heart and has been for a long time.

So let's start with the man at the center of this Fonny Willis prosecution, Young Thug. Tell us what we need to know about him.

Young Thug was born Jeffrey Williams in the south of Atlanta. He comes from the Jonesboro Housing Projects, which was a notoriously rough place to grow up. He's the 10th of 11 children. And starting about a decade ago,

As in the famous French fashion brand.

It's definitely a reference to that. But some people say it stands for Young Stoner Life, Young Slime Life, or in some cases, Young Successful Life. And up under this collective, YSL, led by Young Thug, come a few more successful rappers. Some of whom are his friends growing up in his old neighborhood. And some of whom he just plays talent, scout and plucks them from other neighborhoods in the city.

In short, things are going extremely well for him. So what happens next?

Young Thug starts to cross over into the mainstream. Now, he's working with pop singers. He's on this Camila Cabello song from 2017 called Havana.

Oh, I love you more than anything.

And it feels like they're on top of the world and they're only getting bigger. And then, on May 9th, 2022,, the entire music world is shocked when Fonny Willis' office in Fulton County drops a huge indictment against Young Thug and YSL, his rap crew.

It is our allegation that they operated as a criminal street gang and commenced to do havoc in our community.

And what exactly is the accusation in the indictment? Obviously, it involves racketeering, Rico. But specifically, what's the case being made?

Fonny Willis' office in Fulton County is alleging that Young Thug, Jeffrey Williams, is the head of YSL, which was not only a rap collective, but a criminal street gang terrorizing the streets of Atlanta. And specifically, the Cleveland Avenue neighborhood where Young Thug grew up.

I believe that people in that neighborhood and at every corner of Fulton County deserve to be safe, even if it is financially lower, socially, economically. You know, I don't think that that belief, part of the community, should be left behind.

And terrorizing how, according to the indictment?

The prosecutors say that YSL was a subset of the National Bloods that functioned with Williams as its leader, and that he oversaw crimes like murder, attempted murder, armed robbery, witness intimidation, drug dealing, and more.

Cleveland, in our community, is referred to as Bleeveland. That it is somewhere where just violence occurs, where they're marking up territory as blood territory. It's horrible.

Basically, this group, which does produce music and is a hugely successful musical operation, is also a criminal operation, a gang.

And not only that, but that they are using the music to promote the gang.

That's a really kind of shocking accusation.

Completely. And it sort of turns on its head the idea of gangs that we are used to as a culture.

Just explain that.

Traditionally, we think of the Bloods and the Crips and these West Coast gangs that were such a big part of popular culture in the 1980s and 90s, as these hierarchical organizations where people on the street commit crimes to make money. They fight over territory for drug dealing or robberies. And that money works its way up a pyramid. What Fonny Willis and her office is saying is that Young Thug's success as a rapper in fact allowed him to control people underneath him and to fund their illegal exploits, as opposed to their drug dealing funding him.

Fascinating. It's a reversal. He, the rap artist, is underwriting a gang.

There are little accusations of drug dealing and robbery and stuff in here. But they're not saying that this was the main business. They're saying that rap was the main business and the gang was just bolstering its reputation through both the crimes and the music.

What did you make of that set of claims when you heard them? And what did everybody else in hip hop make of them?

I think for a lot of people who follow rap music very closely, like myself, you sort of know that there's this connection to potentially a criminal underworld. This has been inextricable in the genre throughout its history. And in many ways, what these artists are selling is authenticity. They are documenting where they come from and who they are. But what this indictment was saying was like, what if this rap is too real?

We'll be right back.

So, Joe, bring us into the courtroom as this unusual trial gets underway over the past few days.

This trial was originally going to include 28 defendants, including Young Thug. Over the last year plus, a lot of those people have taken guilty pleas. Some of the cases have been severed. So Young Thug, Jeffrey Williams, is currently being tried alongside five other individuals.

And that seems notable because plea deals in a racketeering case usually are very bad news for the person at the top of the case, which in this case is Young Thug. It means that the lower down folks have basically started cooperating with the prosecutor.

Yes. The whole idea of RICO, which originally started as a way to take down organized crime like the mafia, was you roll up all the little guys on the street and to save themselves, they say who on the top of the food chain was making these calls. They don't have Young Thug saying on a wiretap, go, kill this guy. for me. They don't have him saying YSL needs you to do this.

Let me know when you're ready, Madeline. If you wish to make an open statement at this point in time, please go ahead.

Now, this is the law of the jungle. For the strength of the pack is the wolf. And the strength of the wolf is the pack.

You had Adrian Love, the prosecutor from Fannie Willis's office, starting with a quote from Kipling's The Jungle Book.

And what I expect the evidence to show in this case is that YSL, YSL operated as a pack.

Saying YSL operated as a pack, and Young Thug was the head of that pack. And they knew what they were supposed to do to obey him and his wishes.

YSL, or Young Fly. Mike, was born. And the defendant, Jeffrey Williams, was his proclaimed leader.

What she's doing here is trying to prove, A, that a criminal enterprise existed, in this case, that YSL operated as a criminal street gang, that these guys in particular were members of that group, and that they committed crimes in furtherance of the group.

And what evidence does the prosecutor lay out here?

So, they want to show that YSL exists as a gang, and that these guys are members. So we're talking about everything from hoodies. they're wearing, tattoos. they have, Instagram posts, even emojis.

A green heart emoji, and a green snake emoji. Which I expect the evidence will show. Are the common identifiers associated with YSL. They're the identifiers that they use to announce and project themselves to the rest of the world.

They say that the use of green hearts, or the snake emoji, that that is how members of YSL show their allegiance, and signal to other people that they are part of this criminal street gang.

Okay, so that's the prosecutor's efforts to try to prove membership, and the existence of this operation, which, as you said, is very important. What is the evidence that the prosecutor lays out, that actual crimes were committed by this operation?

So, there are a bunch of little crimes that might seem disparate. Armed robbery, gun possession, drug possession, things like that. But there's one murder that's really at the heart of this case.

That on January 10th at about 7 o'clock in the evening, Donovan Thomas was living the best life he was.

In January of 2015,, an alleged gang member by the name of Donovan Thomas Jr., who's known as Nut, or Big Nut, was killed in a drive-by shooting outside of a barbershop in Atlanta.

You'll see evidence that Donovan Thomas was literally in the middle of laughing it up with his friends. When a car drives by and opens fire.

Fonny Willis's office says that YSL is responsible, and that this set off a chain of events, a gang war, unlike Atlanta had ever seen, in which more than 50 shootings take place as retribution for this killing.

And how does the prosecution link this 2015 murder to YSL and to Young Thug?

Two of the guys being tried alongside Young Thug are charged with executing the actual shooting of Donovan Thomas. But they're also saying that Young Thug helped organize and arrange it, that he approved it, in part by renting the car that committed the drive-by.

The evidence is going to show that the defendant, Jeffrey Williams, rented a car that other YSL members used when they openly and notoriously gunned down Donovan Thomas on January, the 10th of 2015..

Donovan Thomas was killed in front of a Chevy Tahoe, an SUV. And prosecutors are also pointing to specific Young Thug lyrics where he says, for instance, 100 rounds in a Tahoe, meaning bullet holes, they say.

And you'll see that Donovan Thomas' Tahoe had bullet defects all along the back of it when they sprayed Donovan Thomas and his car on January, the 10th of 2015..

And they're claiming that he was rapping about this specific murder.

So, essentially, the prosecution is arguing that Young Thug kind of implicates himself for this murder in a song.

Yeah, in fact, they say he's bragging about it.

Okay, so how do Young Thug, his attorneys, respond to all of this evidence and to this larger argument in their defense?

Young Thug's lawyer, Brian Steele, got up there for his own opening statement. And he said, it's all made up. Young Thug is being targeted because he is a successful rapper. And that to be a successful rapper these days, these are just the things that you rap about.

They want you to hear music that talks about killing drugs. It is art.

You rap about guns, you rap about drugs, drive-by shootings. This is tried and true material for gangster rap. He went so far as to call Young Thug a studio gangster, saying that he basically made all this up, and it's no different from Robert De Niro and Goodfellas.

You will learn that this is part of being involved in hip-hop. It is generating advertising for branding.

He refers to himself as Young Thug.

Because most people think about a thug as a criminal.

He says thug itself is an acronym.

He would be truly humble under God. That's what thug is.

Not to mean that he does bad, but to mean that he is truly humble under God. And sure, maybe he has a Bloods tattoo. That's what sells. Maybe he is flaunting YSL as a gang in his music. But that's all a persona.

What the defense is really saying is that, when it comes to this question of authenticity, at the heart of hip-hop and this trial, Young Thug isn't as authentic as the prosecutors are saying.

Yeah, and that he basically used the tropes of an existing genre to make it out of horrible poverty. That he looked at what worked in rap music, and he made that part of his persona.

And yes, he speaks about killing 12, and people being shot, and drugs, and drive-by shootings. This is the environment that he grew up in. These are the people he knew. These are the stories he knew.

They're basically arguing that Young Thug comes from a horrible neighborhood. He makes it out. He's the most famous person to ever come from where he comes from. And all of these guys want to impress him. So everybody doing petty crime on their own, sure, maybe they think they're doing it in service of this musical superstar.

You will learn that Jeffrey doesn't even know most of the people in this indictment. They all know him because everybody in that area knows Jeffrey Williams. He is known as the Michael Jordan of that area.

But Young Thug's lawyer, Brian Steele, says he doesn't even know some of these people in the indictment. They're all just trying to get his attention.

And how does the defense respond to some of the specific evidence that the prosecutors put forward around that 2015 murder you mentioned as being so central to this case, including the Chevy Tahoe lyrics?

Young Thug's lawyer, Brian Steele, speaking about the Chevy Tahoe, came right out and said, all of these lyrics are subject to interpretation. They're generic.

And is it 100 rounds in a Tahoe, like, ballistic? Or is there someone driving a Tahoe with 100 rounds? up to the listener, I guess?

He says, 100 rounds in a Tahoe. Does that mean bullet holes in a Tahoe, or does that mean somebody carrying a gun within a Tahoe?

The neckline has a pocket.

And Thug's lawyer is saying, sure, maybe these crimes occurred. But you cannot connect them to an artist because he made work that seems to resemble it.

These are not confessions. These are not admissions. This is art.

So, as somebody watching this trial very closely, how strong or how weak does the prosecution's case appear to be at this point? It's early, but I'm going to imagine you have started to think about that question.

I think this is a very, very complex case. And it is hard to explain to a jury how all of these disparate crimes from across nearly a decade, committed by many different people, are all connected to one organization, and specifically one man in Young Thug. So I think they're being very deliberate about laying out the information that they have and trying to prove their case one witness at a time. They say they might call up to 400 people to testify. This could take a very, very, very long time.

Let's just assume for a moment that the prosecution is successful here and that Young Thug is found in some way guilty of leading a criminal conspiracy. What is that going to mean for the wider world that you cover, the world of hip-hop?

I think it potentially has seismic effects on this strain of popular rap music. So much of it is about believing these artists, that they really come from the life that they say they do, and that they really do the things that they're rapping about. There are many young fans around the country who are invested in that idea. And yet if the prosecution can successfully say that all of this gang imagery, these videos, these lyrics, these social media are the glue that holds together a criminal conspiracy, then I think there are a lot of rappers out there who are going to second-guess the way they present themselves and the way they talk about where they come from. And then when you think about these communities themselves, the city of Atlanta and Cleveland Avenue, the neighborhood that Young Thug comes from, you have the prosecution saying that YSL was terrorizing this neighborhood, and that now it should be a safer place.

Is the successful prosecution here not just a kind of legal framework for going after other hip-hop groups, but is it going to deprive the city of Atlanta potentially of something, or make it better?

Yeah, like, is the rap the cause, or is rap the effect?

Well, Joe, thank you very much.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you.

Who do I park?