For today’s generation of hip-hop fans, Young Thug is as influential and visionary as OutKast was to previous eras of rappers. His oft-imitated style — melancholy and machine-tweaked, yet melodic and flamboyant — places him right beside Future as the defining act of contemporary Southern rap. His reach goes beyond that, though: Acts such as Lil Uzi Vert, Juice Wrld and Lil Nas X absorbed his radical aesthetics and peacocking subversions, taking them to pop radio and the Grammy stage.
That’s partly why the sweeping gang and racketeering indictment against the Atlanta rap star, born Jeffery Lamar Williams, and 27 others associated with his Young Slime Life crew (including fellow star Gunna, born Sergio Giavanni Kitchens, and Young Thug’s brother Quantavious Grier, the rapper Unfoonk ) came as such a shock to his home city and to the music world.
The 56-count indictment announced Monday alleges that the Young Thug is a central figure of Young Slime Life, or YSL, which Georgia prosecutors say is a gang that committed or conspired to commit a long list of crimes including murder, aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, armed robbery, carjacking, theft and drug dealing.
