Young Thug, Street Politics & Rap Music

Rap music is probably the most unique genre in the music business.

There’s a whole culture attached to it, a way of life, a way of talking, a way of walking, a way of dressing, a way of dancing, a way of making art. Many aspiring rappers come from places that have their own way of doing things; neighborhoods that have their own norms, customs, and rituals, and you can go to almost any one of these neighborhoods and see that they all have similar rules and parameters. And as these aspiring rappers claw their way to the top of these here charts in this very magazine, they often find themselves trying to keep their off-the-court drama from creeping into this new life that they’re trying to make for themselves.

This is the predicament Young Thug currently finds himself in.

The Nas song “Star Wars” explains this very situation. “It’s shockin’ you thinkin’, ‘Naw, it’s just rhymin”/ But all this time it’s like organized crimin’,” he raps. “For instance, there was a time when there was a line between streets and business, but now peep how it’s mixed in the beef is now sickenin’, everybody got paper/ Words of power, because of it the cops hate ya/ The government watchin’ all of those who thuggin’ it/ They wanna lock us up ’cause they kids are lovin’ it.”

According to Thug, Lil Woody mistakenly breaking into Donovan “Nut” Thomas’ car was the domino that led to YSL’s highly publicized RICO trial. “This whole beef started because of you,” a frustrated Young Thug told Big Bank in an emotional interview this past weekend. “The whole s—t started because of Lil Woody. How the f—k you gonna tell? This whole s—t started because of you. The whole case. This s—t happened because of you, my boy. The whole case because of Woody, some sucka s—t he did to Nut and them. Some sucka s—t.”

Thugger went on to say that Woody found jewelry in the car and when realizing they belonged to Nut, he took jewels back and told Nut that some kids stole them and brought them to him. Apparently, Nut had no issues with Woody afterwards and was willing to move past it, but the people around him weren’t as open to letting the transgression slide — just as Nas rapped on “Star Wars” when he said, “Maybe the words get disrespectful, now your n—as check you/ ‘You ‘gon let that n—a play you? You know we ‘gon rep you.’ Donovan “Nut” Thomas would eventually lose his life.

Thug maintains that these chain of events led to what eventually became the state of Georgia’s longest trial. “We just being some real n—as and your brothers and standing behind you, f—k that,” he said. “You did some sucka ass s—t. Now you got Shannon, Yak, me, Duke, and everybody else on the outside…You got all of us going through s—t because of your own actions that you did on your own time, and you folded and you told. You did the worst. I rather you tell the opps where I live, than tell the police. We go to prison forever. Man, I rather die than go to prison. What the f—k you mean, ‘Move forward’?” 

As Young Thug sat in jail for the past three years, he had a lot of time to kill, and some of that time was spent on the phone talking to people like his girlfriend Mariah the Scientist and his friend and collaborator 21 Savage. These jail calls, that all parties involved assumed were private, have now been making their way onto social media and causing a bunch of little fires that forced the YSL founder to sit down with Big Bank for three hours and try to put them out.

He went even further by releasing a seven-minute song named “Man, I Miss My Dawgs” last night apologizing for some of the things he said over the phone about people close to him like Mariah, Future, and Gucci Mane. In some of those calls, he referred to Future as “r—rded,” called Gucci “soft,” commented on GloRilla’s looks, criticized Drake for reaching out to Metro Boomin to clear a song as he was mourning his mother’s death, and talked to other women behind his girlfriend’s back. These same calls were obtained by fans through open records requests by way of the Cobb County Sheriff, and shared all over the Internet, largely as part of an attempt to smear Thug’s reputation in retaliation for constantly referring to Gunna as a snitch for taking a plea deal during the early days of the YSL RICO trial, something that Thug refuses to change his stance on and has clearly affected him emotionally.

“Because I just don’t got my twin, bro,” he replied tearfully to Bank after being asked why he hasn’t really much music since coming home last Halloween. “Bro, I don’t got my friends, bro. I’m just f—ked up, Bank. I’m f—ked up, bruh. The n—a I be with every day, I don’t got ‘em no more, bro. I’m f—ked up, bruh. I’m f—ked up, bro, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.” He added that he still feels betrayed by Gunna decision to take a plea deal: “And I didn’t lose no n—a to nothing tragic, I lost a n—a to betrayal,” he said. “You signing that one piece of paper, signing your initials on this one piece of paper could get me a life sentence, my nig n—a. Just cause you trying to get home fast or you just trying to get to a hoe or you just doing a certain thing, bruh. And you already betrayed a n—a before, bruh. A piece of paper. You gonna let a piece of paper end all this s—t? N—a, we men. We brothers, n—a. Ain’t no n—a in the world make me go against Gunna. No n—a.”

He then moved on to Yak and Duke’s situation, saying that the former cooperated with law enforcement and allegedly “told on Duke,” before he again brought up Woody and said that he helped hide his family when everything popped off. “When them n—as was shooting at you, Lil Woody, I helped you hide,” he said. “I gave you money to put your family and your baby mama and they mommas and sisters and them in hotels… just to help you.”

Woody recently shot back and tried to refute Thug’s claim that this all started because of him. “Everybody who came out and gave God praises, they elevated in life. This n—a came home talkin’ about, ‘These n—s snitched,’ when everybody risked their life and freedom for you, boy. Why the hell y’all on the Internet talkin’ about, ‘He real,’” and y’all felt his interview? Man, you see bulls—t when you motherf—king see it. I ain’t being nice, I’m tired, I’m pissed off because I was gonna let it go. I wasn’t gonna say nothing, but you got on here and lied saying this s—t started from me and y’all n—s had my back. I ain’t tell y’all to go over there and hurt that man.”

No other genre has this type of complicated dynamic. Again, I feel it necessary to reference that Nas track because the Queens MC so eloquently laid it all out there for us. “Acknowledge the words get twisted at times, its rules,” he raps before asking the rhetorical question, “What, you think it’s different from the block whenever we feud?”

For now, Young Thug must continue to navigate this new era on his own and try to make amends with himself and those closest to him. When he was finishing his rant about Woody, Bank suggested that he should’ve been using his time in jail more constructively, saying, “You was in there two years, you supposed to be healing, bruh, you in there talkin’ s—t.” This is when the YSL founder asked his OG a profound question: “How the f—k I’ma heal in the midst of the fire? How I’ma heal in fire?”

The only person that can answer that for him is himself.