The rapper faces additional charges including three counts of violating Georgia’s controlled substances act, possession of a firearm while committing a felony and possession of a machine gun. He has pleaded not guilty to all eight counts. Six defendants, including Williams, are standing trial.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis has alleged that Williams was associated with a Bloods-affiliated criminal street gang called Young Slime Life (or YSL). The allegations suggest that the artist’s rap lyrics often use the acronym “YSL” — the initials of both the gang and Thug’s record label, Young Stoner Life Records — and other alleged criminal activity. Prosecutors intend on using the rap lyrics in the court trial.
Willis used the same RICO law to indict former president Donald Trump and 18 co-defendants in connection with their alleged attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Adriane Love, the chief deputy district attorney, made the opening statement on behalf of prosecutors Monday, saying that Williams and the other defendants partook in gang-related activity for years.
“YSL checks all the boxes for being a criminal street gang,” she said.
“Defendant Jeffery Williams was its proclaimed leader,” she said. “YSL, as the evidence will show, didn’t move individually. The members and associates of YSL moved like a pack, with defendant Jeffery Williams as its head,” Love said.
Her opening statement was interrupted as Williams’s defense team called for a mistrial, after Love’s presentation tied Williams’s attorney to a separate case, which Judge Glanville had previously ordered against. The defense said it had not seen several slides in her PowerPoint presentation, despite court orders to exchange materials that would be presented. After a lengthy back and forth, which included other objections from the defense to material in the presentation, the motion was denied by Judge Glanville.
Still, multiple attorneys representing the defendants called out alleged factual errors within Love’s opening statement presentation slides and called for them to be removed from the case.
The delays Monday morning follow multiple postponements in the trial, which has drawn national attention for raising the question about how rap lyrics could be used by prosecutors in legal disputes.
Several delays postponed the trial, including a lengthy jury selection as some potential jurors had to leave the case over its potentially lengthy schedule, according to the Associated Press. On Nov. 1, a jury of 12 people were selected for the trial after nearly 10 months.
Williams was first arrested on May 9, 2022, and charged alongside 27 others, including rappers Gunna and Yak Gotti. Several of the defendants took plea deals, including Gunna, an Atlanta rapper whose real name is Sergio Kitchens and had a close association with Young Thug.
Prosecutors argue that Young Thug, Gunna and other rappers charged in the case hinted at criminal behavior through lyrics in their songs. The defense, as well as civil rights attorneys, have argued that lyrics are an example of freedom of expression and that targeting rap lyrics is also an attack on Black art.
The legal dispute paused a growing career for Young Thug, who has seen three of his albums hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart. He has been in custody since being arrested in 2022. The rapper, who has collaborated with artists like Drake, Travis Scott and Nicki Minaj, has been nominated for four Grammys, and won song of the year in 2019 for his songwriting work on Childish Gambino’s “This is America.” Attorneys for Williams and the Fulton County district attorney’s office did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ben Brasch contributed to this report.
correction
A previous version of this article misspelled the given name of Young Thug. It is Jeffery Lamar Williams, not Jeffrey. The article has been corrected.
