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At the end of 2021, Young Thug was one of hip-hop’s biggest rising stars: a critically-adored rapper with three chart-topping hits, three-chart topping albums, a Grammy award for song of the year and his own record label (YSL, short for Young Stoner Life) under Warner Music’s 300 Entertainment.
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Two years later, Thug (real name Jeffery Williams) is set to face a grueling trial starting Monday (Nov. 27) over allegations he ran a violent Atlanta street gang that committed murders, carjackings and many other crimes over the course of a decade — charges that, if proven, could send him to prison for decades.
Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, whose office is prosecuting the case, has said that YSL wrought “havoc” on the Atlanta area for nearly a decade: “It does not matter what your notoriety is, what your fame is,” Willis said hours after the superstar rapper was first arrested. Thug’s lawyer, Brian Steel, says he is innocent: “Mr. Williams committed no crime whatsoever.”
The YSL case pits prosecutors in America’s rap capital against one of the country’s biggest hip-hop artists, making it one of the music industry’s most closely-watched criminal cases in years. To get you up to speed before the trial, Billboard is explaining the YSL case: How did we get here? What exactly is this case about? And what comes next? Here’s everything you need to know.
What’s Young Thug accused of doing?
In May 2022, Willis unveiled a 56-count indictment against Thug and 27 other alleged members of YSL — an entity that she says is not really a record label called “Young Stoner Life,” but actually a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life” that’s affiliated with the national Bloods gang.
The case claims that since 2012, YSL members have committed a wide range of criminal wrongdoing centered on the Cleveland Avenue area of Atlanta, including murder, assault, robbery, theft, illegal gun possession, illegal drug possession and sales, and more. And prosecutors say that Thug was the clear leader of the organization — they’ve called him “King Slime — who “made YSL a well-known name” by “referring to it in his songs.”
In addition to Thug, the charges also targeted his star protégé Sergio “Gunna” Kitchens, as well as Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Arnold “Lil Duke” Martinez, Thug’s brother Quantavious “Unfoonk” Grier and many others.
The case is built on Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, a law based on the more famous federal RICO statute that’s been used to target the mafia, drug cartels and other forms of organized crime. Such racketeering laws make it easier for prosecutors to sweep up members of an alleged criminal enterprise based on many individual actions.
Some of the most serious accusations in the indictment center on the 2015 killing of Donovan “Big Nut” Thomas Jr., who prosecutors say ran a rival gang in Atlanta. Five YSL members are directly charged with the murder, while Thug himself is accused of renting the car that was used to commit the killing.
Prosecutors also say other members looked to Thug for leadership on serious crimes. In one allegation, the indictment claims that two other YSL members discussed “how to obtain permission” from the rapper before attempting to murder rival rapper YFN Lucci (Rayshawn Bennett) while he was in jail.
After an updated, 65-count indictment was filed August 2022, the star himself is now facing eight counts, including one count of participating in the RICO conspiracy; one count of participating in a criminal street gang; three counts of violating the Georgia Controlled Substances Act; one count of possession of a firearm while committing a felony; and one count of possession of a machine gun.
Go read the full indictment here.
What happened to Gunna?
In the 18 months since the YSL indictment was first handed down, many of the original 28 defendants have either accepted plea deals or been separated from the case for procedural reasons, leaving only six defendants to face trial this week. Just weeks ago, for instance, Derontae “Bee” Bebee pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.
The biggest plea came from Gunna, a critically-acclaimed YSL artist who has frequently been described as Young Thug’s protégé. Last December, he took a so-called Alford plea — a legal maneuver that allows a defendant to enter a formal admission of guilt while still maintaining their innocence. The deal made sense: Gunna had been charged in only one count of the indictment and faced far less serious accusations, mostly centered on his participation in music and social media that promoted YSL.
At the time, Gunna stressed that he had not agreed to work with prosecutors to convict Young Thug or any of the other defendants, and had “absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way.” But at the court hearing where he entered the plea deal, Gunna publicly acknowledged that YSL was both “a music label and a gang,” and that he had “personal knowledge that members or associates of YSL have committed crimes and in furtherance of the gang.”
That has led to some backlash for the rapper, but true to his word, Gunna is not expected to testify at the upcoming trial. Citing an anonymous source, Rolling Stone reported in December that an understanding had been reached that “the state is not going to call him as a witness.” And if he were called, he would still be entitled to exercise his Fifth Amendment right to avoid answering questions.
Why are rap lyrics being cited in court?
The YSL case is one of the most prominent examples of prosecutors using lyrics as evidence against the artists who wrote them — a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from civil liberties activists, defense attorneys and, increasingly, the music industry.
Critics say the use of lyrics as evidence unfairly treats rap as a literal confession rather than a work of creative expression, potentially violating the First Amendment. Even worse, they say rap can have a prejudicial effect on jurors, tapping into existing biases toward young Black men and helping prosecutors win convictions where more concrete evidence is lacking.
California recently enacted first-of-its-kind legislation restricting the practice, and Democrats in Congress have proposed a bill that would do the same in federal cases — an effort supported by major music industry groups. But in the absence of such laws, courts around the country have mostly upheld the right of prosecutors to cite rap lyrics, particularly in gang-related cases.
For her part, the Fulton County District Attorney has offered no apologies: “If you decide to admit your crimes over a beat, I’m gonna use it,” Willis said last year. “I have some legal advice: don’t confess to crimes on rap lyrics if you do not want them used, or at least get out of my county.”
At a climactic pre-trial hearing earlier this month, Thug’s lawyer blasted prosecutors for attempting to use creative expression to convict his client. “They are targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong,” he said. “They are saying that just because he his singing about it, he is now part of a crime.”
Prosecutors argued back that lyrics were “proclamations of violence” by alleged gang members, making them “highly relevant” to proving that YSL was an illegal criminal enterprise. “The issue here is not rap,” one Fulton County attorney argued. “This is not randomly the state attempting to bring in Run DMC from the ’80s. This is specific. These are party admissions. They just happen come in the form of lyrics.”
In the end, Judge Ural Glanville sided with prosecutors and allowed the lyrics to be used in the case, repeatedly telling Thug’s lawyer that “the First Amendment is not on trial” in the case. “They’re not prosecuting your clients because of the songs they wrote,” Glanville said. “They’re using the songs to prove other things your clients may have been involved in. I don’t think it’s an attack on free speech.”
Go read the full list of lyrics that could be cited in the case here.
What took so long to get to trial?
The case against YSL is almost unfathomably complex — so much so that it has repeatedly strained the local legal system nearly to its breaking point.
With 28 men originally indicted, finding lawyers for all of them — a constitutional requirement — proved difficult. According to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, prosecutors secured millions in extra funding to bring huge gang cases, but Georgia’s public defense system did not receive equal funding to keep up. That forced the state to contract with numerous private defense attorneys to help cover the YSL case, but even that arrangement nearly fell apart this past spring over inadequate pay.
Jury selection was even harder. With the trial expected to last as long as a year, it proved nearly impossible to find a dozen people who could drop their financial commitments and halt their lives for that long. The selection process started in January with hopes that the trial could kick off in the spring, but it eventually took more than 10 months — by most accounts, the longest ever jury selection in Georgia state history.
Throughout all of that, Young Thug and the other defendants have been sitting in jail. Though Thug’s attorneys argued that he should be placed under house arrest, Judge Glanville repeatedly refused to grant him bond, swayed by arguments from prosecutors that doing so would increase the risk of witness intimidation.
How is Donald Trump involved?
If the words “Fani Willis” and “RICO” sound familiar, they should: She’s using the very same statute to bring an even-higher-profile case against Trump and others over alleged efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia.
Back in August, a Fulton County grand jury in August indicted Trump and 18 others over accusations that they participated in a criminal scheme to try to keep the Republican in the White House after he lost the presidential election to Democrat Joe Biden. Several co-defendants in that case have recently pled guilty to lesser charges, including former Trump lawyers Sidney Powell and Jenna Ellis.
Willis recently proposed an August 2024 trial for the case — a timeline that could mean that both the YSL trial and the Trump trial would be happening simultaneously. Like the YSL case, the DA’s office expects the election trial to last many months.
Trump’s lead attorney, Steve Sadow, represented Gunna in the YSL case and negotiated his plea deal to end his involvement.
What do prosecutors need to prove?
As with all criminal cases, the burden is on prosecutors to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Thug and others did what they’re accused of — meaning jurors must be virtually certain that they’re guilty before they vote to convict.
To prove the core RICO charges, the DA’s office will need to show a “pattern of racketeering activity” by the YSL members — meaning they conspired to run an illegal enterprise, or a “racket.”
Prosecutors will try to do so by detailing more than 150 “acts” that were allegedly carried out “in furtherance of the conspiracy.” Some of those will be what are called “predicates” — meaning actions that would crimes on their own, like the like Donovan murder. But others will merely be “overt acts,” meaning any concrete step that YSL members took to help the illegal enterprise, even if it isn’t a crime on its own. That’s where social media posts and song lyrics come into the case.
Importantly, prosecutors don’t need to show that every defendant knew about every element of YSL’s operations. They only need to prove that each YSL member knew about the conspiracy and agreed to be part of it, and took at least two actions to further it.
RICO is best known for the federal law that was created in the 1970s to target mob bosses who didn’t directly commit crimes themselves. But many states have passed their own versions, and Georgia’s, passed in 1981, is notably broader than the federal version. It has a longer list of crimes that can serve as “predicates,” and it covers shorter-term criminal conspiracies than the federal law.
Willis is very familiar with Georgia’s RICO statute. In addition to using it against YSL and former President Trump, she also recently brought a RICO case against a gang that allegedly robbed the Atlanta homes of celebrities like Mariah Carey.
And back in 2014, when she was an assistant DA, Willis served as lead prosecutor in a RICO case against a group of Atlanta educators over their role in widespread cheating on standardized tests. Following an eight month trial — the longest in Georgia history — Willis secured convictions against 11 of 12 of the teachers.
“The reason that I am a fan of RICO is, I think jurors are very, very intelligent,” Willis told reporters last year. “RICO is a tool that allows a prosecutor’s office and law enforcement to tell the whole story.”
How is the trial going to play out?
Starting first thing on Monday, the six remaining defendants — Thug, Marquavius Huey, Deamonte “Yak Gotti” Kendrick, Quamarvious Nichols, Rodalius Ryan and Shannon Stillwell — will go to trial.
The jury, composed of seven Black women, two white women, two Black men and one white man, will hear opening arguments from both sides, and then the DA’s office will begin calling witnesses. According to a report by Atlanta’s 11Alive, prosecutors said in court earlier this month that their list of potential witnesses includes a stunning 737 names, featuring 258 lay witnesses — regular people who can testify to what they saw — and 479 expert witnesses, who will explain complex issues to jurors.
Eventually, the defendants will get a chance to call their own witnesses. In a recent legal filing, Thug listed among his potential witnesses rappers T.I. (real name Clifford Harris) and Killer Mike (Michael Render), as well as music business executive Lyor Cohen, who co-founded 300 Entertainment. Thug’s attorneys will also call their own expert witnesses to counter the testimony from the government.
If convicted on the RICO charge, the defendants face prison sentences lasting anywhere from five to 20 years. But Thug and others also face separate charges over other specific crimes that, if proven, could add additional prison time to any eventual sentence.
An Atlanta judge ruled Thursday that he would allow many of Young Thug’s rap lyrics to be used as evidence against him and other alleged gang members in their upcoming criminal trial, rejecting arguments that doing so would violate the First Amendment.
The ruling came a day after Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville held a hotly-anticipated hearing about the use of lyrics as evidence – a controversial practice that has drawn backlash from the music industry and efforts by lawmakers to stop it.
The lyrics could play a key role in the trial, which will kick off later this month. Prosecutors allege that Thug (Jeffery Williams) and his “YSL” were not really a popular music collective called “Young Stoner Life,” but a violent Atlanta gang called “Young Slime Life” that committed murders, carjackings, drug dealing and other crimes over the course of a decade.
Representing the superstar artist, attorney Brian Steel blasted prosecutors for attempting to use creative expression to convict his client. “They are targeting the right to free speech, and that’s wrong,” Steel said. “They are saying that just because he his singing about it, he is now part of a crime.”
But after an hours-long hearing that ran until nearly 9 pm on Wednesday evening, Judge Glanville largely rejected those arguments. “They’re not prosecuting your clients because of the songs they wrote,” Glanville said from the bench. “They’re using the songs to prove other things your clients may have been involved in. I don’t think it’s an attack on free speech.”
In a formal ruling on Thursday morning, the judge denied Thug’s request to ban the lyrics entirely, and granted a motion by prosecutors to preliminarily admit them. Though Judge Glanville said prosecutors would still need to establish why they were using them and that Steel could object during the trial, the judge repeatedly suggested at Wednesday’s hearing that he would allow lyrics to be admitted as evidence and that it would be up to jurors to decide how much weight to give them.
At the hearing, prosecutor Michael Carlson urged Judge Glanville to avoid sweeping questions about free speech. He said the actual issue before the court was not rap lyrics but rather “proclamations of violence” by alleged gang members that are “highly relevant in this case.”
“The issue here is not rap,” Carlson said. “This is not randomly the state attempting to bring in Run DMC from the 80s. This is specific. These are party admissions. They just happen come in the form of lyrics.”
Near the end of the hearing, Carlson sharply criticized the suggestion that the rap lyrics in question were simply works of art without a direct link to real events. “People can look at that indictment and see one thing that’s for sure not fantasy: People are dead. Murdered.”
“That’s not fantasy, your honor,” Carlson said. “That’s tragically real.”
Earlier on Wednesday, prosecutor Symone Hylton highlighted specific lyrics that the state plans to play for jurors during the trial and explained why they were relevant enough to be admitted. They included lines from Thug’s 2016 song “Slime Shit,” in which he raps about “killin’ 12 shit” and “hundred rounds in a Tahoe.”
Hylton argued that “12” is a well-known euphemism for police officers, and that the lyric referred to a specific incident in which an officer was shot by a YSL member. And she said that the “Tahoe” lyric was a boast about the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas – a key allegation in the indictment.
“Not only did Donovan Thomas drive a Tahoe, there were multiple rounds of shell casings laid out on the ground where he was killed in front of his barber shop,” Hylton said. “While [the lyric] may on the surface seem irrelevant, when you put it to the facts that are going to come out in this case, that particular verse becomes very relevant.”
Among other songs, she also referenced the 2018 track “Anybody,” in which Thug raps “I never killed anybody/ But I got somethin’ to do with that body”; and the song “Really Be Slime,” a 2021 compilation track released by Young Stoner Life Records that features the line “You wanna be slime? Go catch you a body.”
“It’s the state’s contention that [the lyric] means you go out and you go murder someone,” Hylton said. “That’s how you become ‘slime’.”
Young Thug, Gunna and dozens of other alleged YSL members were indicted in May 2022. Gunna and several other defendants eventually reached plea deals, and other defendants were separated from the main case, leaving just Thug and five others to face a jury. If fully convicted, he could face a life sentence.
After months of delays, a jury was finally seated last week, clearing the way for the trial to kick off on Nov. 27 – proceedings that are expected to last well into 2024. But before then, Judge Ural Glanville must decide on whether the jury can hear his lyrics as part of the prosecution’s case.
Civil liberties activists and defense attorneys have long criticized the use of rap lyrics to win criminal convictions. They argue that it unfairly targets constitutionally protected speech, treating hyperbolic verse as literal confessions; they also say it can unfairly sway juries by tapping into racial biases.
Lawmakers in California enacted legislation last year restricting the use of creative expression as evidence in criminal cases, and a federal bill in Congress that would impose similar restrictions has been widely supported by the music industry. But absent such statutes, courts around the country have mostly upheld the right of prosecutors to cite rap lyrics, particularly in gang-related cases.
In his arguments Wednesday, Thug’s lawyer Steel echoed such concerns in pushing to exclude the lyrics from the case. He noted that many other artists had used similar phrases – he name-dropped Rick Ross, Meek Mill and Cardi B — and that rap lyrics are often exaggerated or wholly fictional. Steel argued that individual lyrics should only be admitted when prosecutors have linked them much more specifically to actual alleged actions – an analysis he said the DA’s office had failed to perform.
But Steel’s main message for Judge Glanville was that using the lyrics would violate the First Amendment and its protections for free speech, arguing that it would effectively criminalize the output of a “prolific songwriter.”
“A person in America can say I hate Brian Steel, I hate criminal defense lawyers, I hate prosecutors, I hate judges,” Steel said. “We believe that we flourish when we can share ideas even when they’re repugnant, even when you don’t agree with them.”
“If you allow this evidence,” Steel said, “it’s going to have a chilling effect.”
But Judge Glanville was skeptical of Steel’s arguments from the beginning, repeatedly suggesting that he believed some of the lyrics were relevant enough to be admitted in the case — and occasionally showing frustration with Steel’s arguments to the contrary. At one point, he interrupted Steel to say that “the First Amendment is not on trial.”
Later, Steel said that prosecutors were using Thug’s “words” to convince jurors that he was “a bad man” — the kind of improper “character” evidence that is typically rejected. But Judge Glanville again had a quick retort: “No they’re not. They’re using his words to show that he’s involved in a gang.”
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Cardi B is not the one to hold her tongue. She recently chimed in on controversy surrounding the Atlanta food scene.
The Bronx, New York, native has been living in Atlanta for some time after marrying Offset. According to HipHopDox, last week a popular social media food critic named Keith Lee recently conducted several reviews of the city’s most frequented eateries and while some locations hit the mark, many did not. As expected his content quickly went viral, and it seems that it landed on Bardi’s radar prompting her to give her two cents on the matter.
Last weekend she addressed the situation on Instagram Live. “I feel like Atlanta restaurants, they don’t like to make money,” she stated. “I feel like they don’t like people, they don’t like they customers, they just don’t f*cking like it. You could barely order in Atlanta restaurants.” Cardi B went on to further detail her struggles with getting food. “It gets to the point that I have to tell people that order food for me, ‘Can you just name-drop my name?’ Because they don’t do no pick up orders, they don’t do deliveries, they just don’t do sh*t.”
The “Press” rapper also made it clear the customer service also needs course correcting. “Even with the bougie restaurants, it’s not as bad as the Atlanta service. It’s like they treat you like they doing you a favor! Like, y’all want mothaf*ckas to come back?”
You can see Cardi’s rant below.
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Oysters are a delicacy enjoyed by many across the world, and a new spot in Atlanta might have to find itself a new haul after a video highlighting the restaurant went viral. What has some on social media flabbergasted is that the young lady threw down four dozen oysters during a date she seemingly didn’t want to go on.
TikTok user EquanaB shared a video to her TikTok account highlighting Fontaine’s Oyster House, a popular seafood restaurant in Atlanta. Opening her video by saying that she was meeting with a man she ignored for weeks simply out of boredom, EquanaB documents her date night and devouring of oysters, complete with slurping sounds and breakdowns of how good the food was.
We’re never going to shame a young woman for getting it how she lives but what folks online are completely shocked by is the fact that EquanaB probably wiped out Fontaine’s inventory in one night. Granted, the oysters with $15 per dozen so her date wouldn’t have had to shell out too much for the one-sided date.
Speaking of, the true plot twist, granted if this is an actual true story, is that her date ditched her at Fontaine’s and left her with the bill. With folks always looking to go viral and the fact folks have been duped before, we caution readers to take all of this information with a grain of salt.
Again, as users on X, formerly Twitter, have shared, 48 oysters are overdoing it to the max. We just hope that EquanaB’s insides are okay after taking down that much seafood on top of lemon drop martinis, potatoes, and crab cakes.
Check out the X reactions and video below.
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Red Bull Culture Clash, an event inspired by the “soundclash” battle scene first popularized in Jamaica, will make its return to Atlanta next month and will feature four popular crews facing off for the title of winner. With the clashing quartet highlighting the sounds of Dancehall, Reggaeton, Amapiano, and Hip-Hop, the crews will be assisted in their respective genres with notable fixtures of the scene.
On November 4, Rum Punch Brunch, Mashup Sessions, Bamba Tuesdays, and Perreo404, all known for throwing some of the hottest parties throughout Atlanta, will face off at the Gateway Center Arena with a special performance lined up.
Rum Punch Brunch, with DJs Tony Matterhorn and Willy Chin, will feature during its set Jamaican dancehall artist and producer Serani, Mashup Sessions will bring Young Nudy onstage with DJs Unruely and The Canterbury Tales. Bamba Tuesdays will take the stage with Afro B, with DJs Kash, DangerVybz, and Polish providing the sounds, and Perreo404 will be joined by Bad Bunny collaborator DJ Luian with assistance from DJ EU and Nino Augustine.
Along with the Red Bull Culture Clash featured crews, Atlanta legends Crime Mob will put on a performance with original members Diamond, Lil’ Jay, M.I.G., Money Blacc (Cyco Blacc), and Princess. Serving as hosts will be Jessie Woo and Paige Shari and DJ Jay Shale will provide the vibes for fans before and between sets.
Red Bull Culture Clash first kicked off in Atlanta in 2017 and returned the following year with Dancehall crew Unruly winning the battle in its first year with Frequent Fliers taking the title in 2018. The event returned to the States last year with events held in New York and Los Angeles.
“Super excited to be a part of Red Bull Culture Clash this year because I’ve been a team member a few years back with Mike WiLL (Made-It) and the Eardrummers. Now it’s time to lead the charge for my own team,” DJ Kash of Bamba Tuesdays said in a statement. “Red Bull Culture Clash is like a legit gladiator battle for DJs, producers, and whatever you do creatively in the music. For me, this is super important because this lets you know where you stand as far as how to rock a crowd.”
“Red Bull Culture Clash is an important event in Atlanta because it highlights all the people that are doing movements in the city of Atlanta – that are really putting on for the culture of the city and showcasing all the vibes and sounds of our cultures,” added DJ EU, who won Red Bull 3Style in Atlanta in 2013. “Red Bull Culture Clash takes me back to my Red Bull 3Style battling days, but this time it’s not one person – it’s the crew and I could not be happier to be repping the Latinos in Atlanta with my Perreo404 crew.”
Tickets are on sale right now. To get yours, follow this link.
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Photo: Red Bull Content Pool
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Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine are teaming up once again to create a new program for high school students, this time in Atlanta.
On Tuesday (Aug. 28), the co-founder of Interscope Records introduced the “Iovine and Young Center” in a press conference held at Frederick Douglass High School in northwest Atlanta, according to Atlanta News First. The iconic producer wasn’t able to attend in person, so Iovine was joined by another legend and Atlanta native Dallas Austin.
The new magnet program created in partnership with Atlanta Public Schools is designed to give students a more innovative learning model with a focus on technology and leadership, something that Iovine and Dr. Dre aka Andre Young hope will ignite the students’ “superpowers.”
“We believe we’re going to give these kids an advantage, a different type of education,” Iovine said at the press event. “So, you all can sell these kids, go out there and say you want these kids. Because the modern job needs these kids. That’s why.” Interested students in the 9th grade STEAM academy at Frederick Douglass can enroll in the program next year at the school, which has an esteemed alumni list including former mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, Killer Mike, T.I., Kilo Ali, and Lil Jon. It will be offered to all grade levels by the 2027-2028 school year.
Current sophomore Caleb Mitchell is eager to take part. “I think it will help bring out [the] potential of students and help them engage more… I think this will provide more opportunities for us,” he said. “Integrating the Iovine and Young Center at Frederick Douglass High School supports our ability to teach students how to design their thinking, brings student ideas to life, and further prepares our students for competitive careers that may not even exist yet,” said Forrestella Taylor, Frederick Douglass’ principal.
Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine created a similar magnet program in 2022 at Compton High School in Los Angeles, with The Chronic producer chipping in $10 million personally to aid the $200 million renovation of the campus. “Me and Dre think big,” Iovine would later add. “We think everybody in the world’s going to learn like this well, maybe! We never thought everybody in the world would wear our headphones, but they did.”
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Donald Trump goes through lawyers at about the same rate civilians go through shoes and sneakers. The ex-President just hired a new lawyer, who in the recent past represented rappers Rick Ross. T.I. and Gunna, and singer Usher, among others, on the same day he is to surrender to the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office for his RICO case.
Yeah, Cheeto caught a RICO charge (which has created some now well-traveled mug shots of his famed co-defendants like Rudy Giuliani and Mark Meadows) and now he’s hiring an accomplished lawyer from the “urban music” world, again. You can’t make this stuff up. Trump’s new lawyer is Steven Sadow, who is a well-regarded criminal defense lawyer. We trust that he demanded an insane upfront payment considering Trump’s well-documented penchant for not paying his attorneys in full.
The New York Times reports that Sadow filed documents with the court on Thursday (August 24) saying he was now “lead counsel of record for Donald John Trump” while Drew Findling will be stepping down as Trump’s representation in his RICO case. It was Findling and his team who negotiated Trump’s $200,000 bond in the case.
The Atlanta-based Sadow has handled some high-profile cases in the Hip-Hop world as a defender. Some of his clients have included Usher, Rick Ross and T.I. He infamously represented Ray Lewis’ co-defendant Jeffrey Sweeting in the ex-NFL linebacker’s murder trial, for which he was acquitted. Most recently, he represented Gunna in the rapper’s own RICO case involving Young Thug and YSL. He managed to get Gunna, born Sergio Kitchens, “negotiated guilty plea” that saw him get time served in exchange for a guilty plea while maintaining his innocence. This hasn’t gone over well with some fans, and fellow rappers.
Clearly, Atlanta rappers stay hiring pricey lawyers considering Findling, now Trump’s former lawyer, has represented Gucci Mane. Cardi B, Offset and BMF’s Demetrius “Big Meech” Flenory, amongst others.
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The rise in COVID-19 cases in the state of Georgia has propelled Morris Brown College to reinstitute masking mandates for its students and employees.
According to NewsOne, the HBCU based in Atlanta, Georgia sent out a letter detailing the guidelines for the mandate to faculty members, incoming students, and staff last Friday (August 18). The letter was then released publicly on the school’s Instagram account on Sunday (August 20).
The mandate, which will be in existence for the next two weeks, requires everyone to wear masks. Physical distancing is also reinstated for students, as well as a ban on large gatherings and parties for students for those two weeks. In addition, students are required to undergo temperature checks upon arrival to campus and to take part in contact tracing efforts by the college. The contact tracing and other care and assistance will be provided by the school through its partnership with St. Joseph Mercy Care.
Morris Brown College made the move in response to the rising rate of COVID-19 cases being reported by the Atlanta University Center (AUC), which consists of Clark Atlanta University, Spelman College, Morehouse College, and Morehouse School of Medicine. Their lead epidemiologist, Kara Garretson, recently released a resource guide for AUC students and employees to follow.
COVID-19 rates in Atlanta have risen since August 5th, according to the data collected by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The rate of hospitalizations rose by 29.5%, with 322 confirmed cases in that time, and while the numbers are lower in comparison to the same time frame last year, there is concern as a new variant has been settling in around the nation. The EG.5 variant has been active for the last couple of months and is believed to be responsible for 17% of cases in the United States thus far.
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Amazon’s live interaction radio app, AMP, has officially announced the three selected standout stars for their new emerging artist program The Come Up, shining the spotlight on Atlanta rappers Pote Baby, CEO Trayle, and Ken Carson.
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According to the announcement, as part of the program, the three selected artists will be featured in a series of three mini-documentaries developed and directed by Atlanta creative Cam Kirk, which gives viewers an up-close look at the journey of the selected artists as the next generation in Atlanta Hip-Hop.
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The inaugural episode of the documentary highlights Pote Baby, who shared that his creative vision is to bridge the gap between Savannah and the global entertainment world by opening up recording studios, live performance venues, art spaces, and movie theatres in his hometown.
“I grew up seeing Trick Daddy, Wayne, and Camoflauge represent the ghetto and the south in a fly way,” Pote Baby said in a statement, “So it’s dope to get a chance to do the same thing for the next generation.”
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Developed by Amp, in collaboration with Kenny Burns, The Come Up launched with a focus on Atlanta-based Hip-Hop talent, featuring live music and discussion-based radio shows on Amp hosted by Burns, Big Bank, DJ Kash, Paige Shari, Su Solo, and hip-hop fans across the platform.
Source: Cam Kirk / Amp
“The A has it all — artists that sing, rap, and dance, and rappers that are actual rock stars!” Kenny Burns said in a statement. “Fans have been gathering live on Amp to weigh in on their favorite new artists in the Atlanta hip-hop scene, and we’re excited to highlight CEO Trayle, Ken Carson, and Pote Baby as part of The Come Up because they represent this new wave of diverse talent rising up in the city today.”
In addition to being featured in the Cam Kirk docuseries, to help amplify their music, each artist will receive opportunities to be interviewed on fan-favorite Amp shows such as The Daily Cannon with Nick Cannon, and Rotation Radio with Gabe P and Nyla Symone, along with promotional support across Amazon Music and Amp and inclusion on “The Come Up” playlist on Amazon Music.
“I’m excited to be part of an opportunity that highlights emerging artists from my city,” selected artist Ken Carson said in a statement. “Atlanta’s always had the best sound in music and I’m happy to be a part of that. We’re not stopping anytime soon.”
Check out episode one of The Come Up docuseries below.
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It seems any issues that Meek Mill and Rick Ross had are now in the past. Rozay has reportedly purchased Meek’s home for four million dollars in cash.
As spotted on Complex the MMG talent once again proves that he is bossed up. This week WSBTV reported that Meek had been trying to offload the Buckhead property for some time. After almost two years the Philadelphia MC took matters into his own hands and posted visuals on his social media channels promoting that the home was on the market. “come grab this Jawn … it’s some top secret shit in there too!” he wrote on Twitter.
It seems his approach was just what the doctor ordered as his realtor Alisha Gillooly confirmed that the eight-bedroom nine-bathroom property was purchased by $4.2 million dollars in cash by Rick Ross. The house reportedly includes a private pool, movie theater, tennis court, jacuzzi, playground and double garage. In an ironic twist of events Meek shared on Instagram Story that he didn’t even know that Rick Ross purchased the house until media outlets picked up the story. “Sold Rozay the big fish estates … I ain’t even know he bought this lol”.
It is not clear if Rick Ross will keep this location or use it as an investment property.
Photo: Courtesy of Jetdoc