Is Young Thug, American hip-hop star, actually a gang leader? His label, a showcase for his criminal activities? The lyrics of his songs proof of his involvement? Twelve jurors will have to decide, starting Monday, November 27, in Atlanta, Georgia. For more than a year, the case has regularly made the headlines. Not only because it concerns one of the most promising rappers of his generation, but also because American justice has summoned his music to the dock. The trial is already historic: it took almost ten months to form the jury, due to multiple incidents and a procedure that could last several months, or even more than a year, while hundreds of witnesses are called to testify. bar.
Jeffery Lamar Williams, 32, was arrested on a Monday in May 2022 at his home in Buckhead, an upscale neighborhood in northern Atlanta. The images of the handcuffed black musician who proclaims his innocence have toured the country. This dragnet concerns twenty-seven other people, including the rapper Gunna, his protégé, as famous as him. All are indicted by a grand jury in this southeastern state for their alleged membership in a branch of the national Bloods gang, identified as Young Slime Life, or YSL. The same initials as those of Young Stoner Life Records, Young Thug’s label, whose stage name means “young thug”.
The indictment mentions murder, attempted murder, armed robbery… All are charged under the local Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) law, a 1970 federal law intended to combat large criminal organizations, such as Mafia. This law has been implemented in more than thirty states, including Georgia, where prison sentences range from five to twenty years. “This law was designed to [poursuivre des criminels comme] a godfather, Vito type Corleone, who doesn’t kill anyone himself, doesn’t does not embezzle money, but runs a structure that does all this”, explains law specialist Jeffrey Grell. Suspected of being the boss, Young Thug was charged with participation in criminal street gang activity and criminal association. He is accused in particular of having rented a car used for the murder of a rival gang leader.
A singular figure in American rap
His arrest shook the Atlanta hip-hop scene. Having long cultivated its reputation as a “Black Mecca”, a land of promise and fulfillment for an African-American elite, the city that saw the birth of Martin Luther King is also the most unequal city in the United States. -United. The rise of hip-hop depicting the living conditions of the city’s ghettos allowed it to offer a counter-narrative. Atlanta has thus established itself as the new epicenter of rap with trap, a southern variation with numb rhythms, named in reference to trap houses, these abandoned houses where drugs are sold. A musical genre that Young Thug helped popularize.
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