​@Young Thug & @Gunna SCREAMS IT’S A “WRAP” FOR #Fani Willis' #RICO CHARGES; OR IS IT? #FREEDOM!

ATLANTA — The rap star Young Thug, one of the most influential artists to emerge from Atlanta’s famously fertile hip-hop scene, was arrested on Monday on suspicion of gang involvement and conspiracy to violate the Georgia criminal racketeering law. The rapper, whose real name is Jeffery Williams, was charged in a sweeping grand jury indictment that identified him and 27 other people as members of the same criminal street gang and charged some of them with violent crimes including murder and attempted armed robbery.

Mr. Williams has reshaped the rap world throughout his decade-plus career and inspired a host of emulators as three of his albums reached No. 1 on the Billboard chart and he collaborated with stars across the rap world and beyond. His arrest comes as District Attorney Fani Willis of Fulton County — a Democrat best known for investigating whether former President Donald J. Trump and his allies committed election fraud in Georgia — has vowed to crack down on street gangs in Atlanta, a city reeling from violent crime.

The arrest of Mr. Williams at a house in the well-heeled Buckhead neighborhood was confirmed on Monday night by Jeff DiSantis, a spokesman for Ms. Willis’s office, who said that several other people named in the indictment were also arrested.

The indictment alleges that Mr. Williams is a founder of Young Slime Life, a criminal street gang that began in Atlanta in 2012 and is affiliated with the national Bloods gang. Mr. Williams’s successful record label has been variously called YSL Records or Young Stoner Life Records; the label refers to its artists as part of the “Slime Family,” and a compilation album called “Slime Language 2” hit No. 1 on the charts in April 2021.

All 28 people named in the indictment were charged with conspiracy to violate the state Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, or RICO, which is closely modeled on the federal law that has most famously been used against organized crime members. In 2014, Ms. Willis helped lead a controversial racketeering prosecution in which Atlanta public-school teachers were accused of cheating on standardized tests. She has also raised the possibility that Mr. Trump and some of his allies may have violated state RICO law in their alleged efforts to subvert the results of the 2020 presidential election.

Ms. Willis and other Georgia officials have raised alarms recently about gangs in the Atlanta region, where they have historically not been as prevalent, or as culturally rooted, as they are in places like greater Los Angeles. In a recent public meeting, Ms. Willis called gangs “the No. 1 threat against public safety” in Atlanta. At a news conference on Tuesday, she said gangs “are committing conservatively 75 to 80 percent of all the violent crime that we’re seeing within our community. And so they have to be booted out of our community.”

Ms. Willis said that Atlanta should “absolutely” expect more RICO indictments against other street gangs.

The indictment comes at a time when other big-city lawmakers and law enforcement officials are worried about hip-hop artists and their ties to criminal activity as the nation struggles to contain a nationwide spike in violent crime. Those concerns, and the pushback from civil libertarians and hip-hop fans, echo the debates of the late 1980s and early 1990s, when explicitly violent lyrics in the emerging gangster rap genre stirred controversy.

TIME STAMP
0:00 INTRO
0:20 AGENDA
0:58 INDICTMENT
2:22 PARTICIPATING IN CRIMINAL GANG ACTIVITY
5:08 WHAT IS RICO?
7:06 DIFFERENCE BETWEEN GEORGIA RICO AND FEDERAL RICO
12:25 FANI'S REASON FOR TAKING THE CASE
14:49 RICO CASE AGAINST YOUNG THUG
22:44 MISTAH CKB'S SUMMARY