Young Thug YSL RICO Trial Official Thread

quote:

---

When the racketeering and gang conspiracy trial of Jeffery Williams, best known as the chart-topping rapper Young Thug, began on Monday in Atlanta, the star defendant had been in jail for 567 days.

Already estimated to last the better part of a year, the trial took nearly twice that long to even get going, with the case’s legal intricacies, unforeseen courtroom dramas, plea deals and various other delays leading to a jury selection process that lasted nearly 10 months.

Much about the case — which seeks to answer whether one of the most famous and influential rappers of his time was also spearheading a violent criminal enterprise — could be described as epic, including its scope, with alleged crimes from 2015 to 2022; its effect on rap music and the city that remains one of the genre’s centers for innovation; and its entanglement with the potential legal fate of former President Donald J. Trump.

In August, a grand jury convened by District Attorney Fani T. Willis of Fulton County indicted Mr. Trump and others in a conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia under the same criminal racketeering law, or RICO, used to charge Young Thug. (A third racketeering case in Fulton County, against dozens of local activists, is drawing national interest as well.)

---

quote:

---

Who is Jeffery Williams, a.k.a. Young Thug?

Mr. Williams, 32, is one of modern Atlanta’s rap icons, having remade the genre in his image over the past decade. Combining psychedelic experimentalism in voice, melody, lyricism and fashion with a hardened street edge and a sneaky pop sensibility, Mr. Williams has earned three No. 1 albums on the Billboard chart and collaborated widely with musicians including Drake, Kanye West, Future and Travis Scott.

In 2018, as a featured artist, Young Thug reached No. 1 on the singles chart with the singer Camila Cabello’s “Havana.” The following year, he won a Grammy for song of the year as a writer of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America,” the first rap song to win that award.

The 10th of 1l children, Mr. Williams was raised in the Jonesboro South housing projects and along the desolate South Atlanta corridor Cleveland Avenue. He founded YSL in the area around late 2012, according to court documents, in association with two other men, both of whom have pleaded guilty in the case.

---