Episode 6: I Came From Nothing

Both Young Thug's rise to stardom and current legal entanglements epitomize Atlanta's complicated legacy as a Black mecca. We explore how the YSL trial has already impacted the city and its music—and discover a secret about the rapper's legal future that could change everything, regardless of what the jury rules.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
King Slime is a production of iHeart Podcasts in Heirloom Media.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
I was in Wenette County in nineteen eighty eight at
the age of fifteen, and I was bussed to part
for Your High school. I was the only black guy
there and I was bussed at to be the first
African American running back for the school. But I didn't
know how to fit in. The streets are always calling
to you. I think our parents don't understand the tune

(00:34):
of the streets. It's always calling twenty four hours. It's
accepting whether you rich, poor, black, white, fat, skinny, whatever
gender you're from, the streets will say I'll welcome you.
I desire that friendship that confert and it led me
being around a lot of older guys, and I found

(00:56):
that sense of welcoming in the streets. At that time,
it was the gridsposure to the games not as elucid
as it is now. At that time, you just had
gds and vice lords running around. You had down by
law moving in certain places in Atlanta, and so when
I say the streets, it's a mixture of that. The

(01:18):
games was not as formulated as they are now. I
found that sense of welcoming in the streets, just going
out to the streets and started committing crimes. Started real small.
It always starts real small, and getting involved in stealing cars,
and that sense of to tell the truth of power.

(01:42):
It's hard when you feel powerless, but then the streets
give you this sense of power. And at that age
you don't realize this power is like a battery. It's
going to run out after a while, and you don't
understand what's going to run out, so you just keep
going and going and going in the snowball, and then
people expect a fifteen year old to stop the ball

(02:04):
that's gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, to stand in
front of it and just stop. I tried, and it
rolls me over. So just running around some older guys,
we end up robbing the store. Nobody was supposed to
get hurt. But in the heat of things moving around
and going into the store and somebody coming to the
store and people running and they're going so fast, the

(02:28):
guns fire. What just happened?

Speaker 3 (02:35):
What just happened?

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Because that's not like you were going in to go
We're gonna shoot these people. Go shoot this clerk, and
go shoot this person. Didn't happen like that. It didn't
happen like that. But when you put a gun in
your hand, you have to set what happens. At the
end of the day. You know, the clerk lost their life,
and there's like the darkest moment in my life. But

(02:58):
at that time, to be honest, I didn't feel anything
with Morris and sadness, and I became so much part
of the street. Oh just as hard as the road
out there.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
I'm George Cheating and I'm Christina Lee.

Speaker 1 (03:20):
This is King Slime, the prosecution.

Speaker 4 (03:23):
Of Young Thug and Ysol.

Speaker 5 (03:35):
I'm Andrew Morse.

Speaker 6 (03:36):
I'm the president and publisher of the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
Wanted to welcome everybody here tonight and mostly wanted.

Speaker 4 (03:44):
It's Spring twenty twenty three, and I'm at the Gathering Spot,
a networking and co working club founded in Atlanta. Think
a country club without a golf course next to Georgia Tech.
Tonight's panel, sponsored by the Atlanta Journal Constitution newspaper, is
called celebrating Atlanta's Black Culture. There's a black and white
mural of Andre three thousand and Big Boy, a vowcast

(04:05):
in the promo image, and the venue is buzzing because
there are free whiskey cocktails and the night's guest of
honor is Alanta's mayor, Andre Dickens. Dickens want to run
off election against Felicia Moore in twenty twenty one, in
no small part because he grabbed the hip hop crowd.
Years prior, Moore had introduced an ordinance that would have

(04:25):
required that all music studios be built at least five
hundred feet away from residential areas, disregarding the existence of
Holme Studios altogether. Rap artist t I would remember this
ordinance as he rallied his Instagram followers against Moore, claiming
that she lost sight of the culture. Dickens, on the
other hand, is firmly part of the hip hop generation.

(04:47):
As he tells the panel crowd, he and Andre three
thousand were part of a crew that would swap clothes
so that none of them would repeat outfits to school.

Speaker 5 (04:56):
I was so what Andre three thousand, Andre Benjamin. He
was in sixth grade at Sundon, I was in seventh
grade at Southwest. We were in a group of folks
that we would trade clothes so that we looked like
we had more clothes. I had a Fela jagasuit. Andre

(05:22):
had either like a Lecogsportie or Adida's jagasuit, and like
Tony had like a you know, a polo and Da
da da. So we would get together on Sunday and
I'd be like, here's mine, here's yours, here's yours. So
that week I was first like, man, you got a
new jagasuit every week. Now, he wasn't a rapper at

(05:44):
that time.

Speaker 2 (05:44):
He was just a dude.

Speaker 4 (05:47):
Of course, the mayor of Atlanta would have grown up
with Andre three thousand. We're at a moment in the
city's history where that just makes sense, but it's still
worth considering how we got here.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Atlanta's dual histories is a black mecca and music capital
have been intertwined since nineteen seventy four, the year Dickens
was born. Doctor Maurice Hobson is a historian and professor
of Afercana Studies at Georgia State University. He's consulted and
appeared in documentaries about Atlanta's nineteen oh six race massacre
and Atlanta rap star Little Baby.

Speaker 7 (06:19):
The Atlanta sound is based on the soul in funk
that kind of comes into the city in the nineteen seventies.
And that's the result of Mayor Jackson, the creation of
Bureau Cultural Affairs, and Buddy Jackson, Ransom, his first wife,
who who brings soul in font after her Maynor divorce,
and Cameo and Isaac Hayes and Curtis Mayfield and Brick.

Speaker 3 (06:40):
And all these people kind of come to Atlanta.

Speaker 1 (06:42):
That's the sound Maynor Jackson, Atlanta's first black mayor, founded
the Bureau of Cultural Affairs, is the city's first institution
to support local artists and art organizations. Talent shows sprung
up at schools across the city in hopes of keeping
kids off the streets. In nineteen seventy five, Maynard's then wife,

(07:03):
Bunny Jackson, founder of the pr firm First Class, incorporated
to support local bands that gave rise to Atlanta as
a music city.

Speaker 4 (07:11):
Decades later, Antonio La Reid and Kenneth Babyface Edmonds continued
to build off that history when they founded La Face Records.
They chose to establish The Face Records in Atlanta because
it felt like a city full of dreamers. According to Reed,
He noted the city's history of black leadership, upwardly mobile
black community, and civil Rights legacy. The first acts that

(07:33):
LaFace Records worked with in town were future R and
B stars Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston. But then La Reid
took a meeting with two seventeen year old aspiring rappers
Andre three thousand and Big Boy. Aucas went on to
become one of the only rap groups to ever sell
over ten million units, going diamond instead of just gold
or platinum. The LaFace Records offices used to be in Buckhead.

(07:57):
Lifelong Atlanta resident Bane Joyner took not.

Speaker 8 (08:00):
The labels would be in New York and then you
see the Capitol Records building in Los Angeles, so Atlanta
didn't have any of that. And around ninth tenth grade,
I found out that the Face office was in the
Blue Cross Blue Hill Building in Buckhead and it's like,
oh yeah, like it's here for real. I want to

(08:22):
go work for La Red and I'm the same age
as Chriss Cross.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
This realization is crucial to what Joiner has been saying
for years now. If you've ever heard someone say that
Atlanta influences everything, it's beeause of Bame. That's the name
of his creative agency. Through that agency, he's helped create
a handy T shirt slogan and work with local officials
to update the city's image for this hip hop generation.

Speaker 8 (08:48):
Atlanta has King and Coca Cola and outcasts starting I
Guess with the Diamond album and HEYI so this black
melting pot of civic, corporate, commerce, and culture. Those three
reasons are how we justify the statement, because we knew

(09:08):
if somebody wasn't from Atlanta, we would have to justify it.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
And that very idea of Atlanta influencing everything is what
has made being an appropriate.

Speaker 4 (09:17):
Spokesman for the city and why Joiners sharing the stage
with Mayor Andre Dickens at the Gathering Spot tonight.

Speaker 6 (09:25):
We're all really fortunate to be living in this city
at this time. As our friend Bam Joyner who's here
and all embarrass him, but as he likes to say,
Atlanta influences everything. That has never been more true than
it is today. And the thriving, dynamic, influential Black culture
in this city is one of the reasons undeniably why

(09:47):
Atlanta influences everything.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
When Dickens takes the stage, he DAPs up being before
he sits down center stage, and he's happy to wax
nostalgic about his school days, being friends with Andrew three
thousand and seeing civil rights leaders and person as a child, black.

Speaker 5 (10:02):
Men wore suits and they were on TV talking about
good things for us, and I.

Speaker 3 (10:07):
Said, I want to be them.

Speaker 4 (10:09):
But for some of the tougher questions regarding the current
state of Atlanta, in particular about young thug, the YSL indictment,
and the national coverage that the city was seeing as
a result, Mayor Dickens actually had nothing to say.

Speaker 9 (10:22):
And recently we've seen the city on the national stage
for a range of things, from politics, to cock City.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
To the YSL tra I mean, you name it.

Speaker 9 (10:32):
How do you think that some of these events are
going to shape the culture of the city.

Speaker 3 (10:36):
How will it change.

Speaker 10 (10:39):
A lot?

Speaker 4 (10:40):
About Dickens had already rested as Mike on a table
next to him to take a sip of water, and
he doesn't pick it back up to answer. Instead, he
motions toward Bame and smiles widely as if cueing him
to speak on his behalf, which Bame does, reflecting on
how the nation is influencing Atlanta's black hole, sure whether

(11:01):
that is cop city?

Speaker 8 (11:03):
When I heard about stuff happening in the trees. I
hit my home Badtonio, that's his neighborhood. Bruh, you're in
the trees, he said, Nah, bruh, I'm at the crib.
So when he checked around, I found out wasn't nobody
I grew up within the trees.

Speaker 2 (11:20):
I'm like, well, who do you folk in the trees
or young thug?

Speaker 8 (11:23):
Young thug got grammys, yo, don't forget like very creative
people that are floundering.

Speaker 3 (11:31):
So the talent is in Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (11:34):
Yax l is the talent.

Speaker 8 (11:36):
But you see how he calling on Kevin Lows and
these other those are exacts. You see what I'm saying.
The execs of the industry are in New York. If
Farrell and Doug and Mays breed more execs, not just talent,
but the business of how this works, then we can
start to control our culture. And controlling our culture in

(11:58):
Atlanta means we help black people control their culture in America.
But with no control, right, you just got folks running
around here doing anything the business, not the vibe, not
the feeling, not the dancing, but how the money is made.
The brands are run by white boys who smoke weed.
What I'm saying is the business of how things work

(12:23):
in entertainment and culture. They're still either run by white
people or black people liking Kevin Lowes and who they're
trying to call on the witness stand that aren't from here,
and he's going to fight for the music industry. That
man ain't never really keep it on Cleveland Avenue in
Road Martin, and I like Kevin lows. I actually wanted
to be Kevin Lowes. So that's all I'm saying. The

(12:43):
YSL trial is also a lack of creative business infrastructure
that does not exist in this city.

Speaker 4 (12:52):
And with that the panel portion of the night's event
was over.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
I didn't even realize the magnitude of what had happened
to us. We ended up going to court. I didn't
know what was going on. I was only being tried
as an adult, but I really wasn't an adult at
that time. I caulpacity to understand the magnitude. I don't
even think I was a child. I don't know. I know,
I know I'd done wrong, and I always think i'm'a

(13:22):
go home. We denied everything going to court. It we
just denied everything. Is what we're sposta do, cause of
course courts are one in vict in people's heads, not unders,
you know, I I it's in your head. It's you
the one that's courting that what was in my head
that i'm'a beat this, and the judge gave us a

(13:46):
life sentence at the age of fifteen. The judge said,
you know, get this filth out of my courtroom. You'll
never see the light of day. You'll never see the
light of day.

Speaker 1 (14:06):
We chatted with Bame Joiner a few days after that
a JC panel to break down what he had said
that night to start, and to borrow the title from
his first mixtape series, Young Thug Came from nothing more. Specifically,
he came from Cleveland Avenue, where Bame Joiner's mom would
sometimes be assigned as a public sector social worker.

Speaker 8 (14:27):
It's a rough, lower income but blue collar area and
with like not much to look at.

Speaker 3 (14:40):
And I think that's the key, Like.

Speaker 8 (14:43):
Wasn't even no murals or nothing, you know, Like it's
just a rough, low income area.

Speaker 1 (14:52):
Young thugs search for opportunity as an aspiring artist might
have begun at home with family connections. Chuck c who
You met at a episode two, remembers how Young Thug's
father Jeffrey Williams Senior taught the importance of showmanship to
Chuck's rap group, the Throwback Boys.

Speaker 7 (15:08):
We would just get on stage of rap and he
was like, no, you got to have a show. You
got to have showmanship. The showmanship was taught to us
by Big Jeff.

Speaker 1 (15:18):
But Young Thugs road to fame from Cleveland Avenue came
after La Face Records relocated to Los Angeles in the
year two thousand, which doesn't make coming from nothing any easier.
Recent numbers are hard to come by. The pandemics scrambled
our sense of what's going on in Atlanta's economy, But
in the years leading up to the pandemic, Atlanta leaders

(15:40):
relied on a set of studies that showed that a
kid born into poverty has only a one in twenty
five chance of reaching an income in the top quintile,
which is about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars a
year today, But two out of three times the best
outcome is a working class fifteen dollars an hour job.
That's before accounting for the things that might drag someone back,

(16:03):
like a criminal record. A national study that's been running
regularly for thirty years shows that a black person with
a clean criminal record is less likely to be called
into a job interview than a white person with the
same resume and a recent felony conviction. Regular jobs treat
young black men with a criminal conviction as almost unemployable,

(16:24):
not just here but everywhere in America. In other words,
young Thug didn't just come from nothing. He was at
least statistically destined for nothing, which is what makes his
rise to fame and wealth so much more impressive.

Speaker 4 (16:42):
Here's Bame.

Speaker 8 (16:43):
I was like, Okay, yeah, like this is someone who
gets it, especially understanding Cleveland Avenue that area and Atlanta
and still not having music industry, real infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
I don't know where the hand up.

Speaker 8 (17:02):
Came from, you know, that allowed him to get to
the next level.

Speaker 2 (17:07):
He's just kind of diddy.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
This lack of support may not seem out of the
ordinary for most places. Where we're talking about Atlanta, a
city that is now a hip hop capital despite almost
zero incentives from the state of Georgia, and a city
now regarded as a Hollywood of the South, almost entirely
because of incentives from the State of Georgia.

Speaker 8 (17:30):
There was a film tax specifically created to pull money
in but there was nothing ever created for hip hop.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
In the world of rap. Atlanta may be where talent
is born. It's a city where artists overwhelmingly connect and
get creative. From twenty one to twenty eighteen, Fulton County,
which includes Atlanta, saw its music related businesses recording studios,
music festivals, and the like generate almost one point seven
billion dollar. Those same businesses hired at six times the

(18:04):
rate as the rest of Fulton County's economy. But New
York and Los Angeles are still where those same artists
conduct business. It's where labels signed checks and cut deals
with future stars. This dynamic has frustrated Bame for as
long as I've known him.

Speaker 8 (18:18):
If you influence everything and you shouldn't be number one
in income and equality, That's why I hate the shirt
sometimes because it translates to you, you cool, but you broke.

Speaker 4 (18:30):
But concerning the YSL trial specifically, Bame also worries about
how Atlanta's influence gets wielded by people outside the city.
He sees that influence operating outside the city's control and
taking advantage of artists who intrigue critics and music listeners
with outlaw sensibilities. Like young thug. As he said during
the AJAC event.

Speaker 8 (18:51):
Controlling our culture in Atlanta means we hope black people
control their culture in America. But with no control, right,
You just got folks running around here doing anything.

Speaker 2 (19:10):
When you turn seventeen in State of Georgia, you go
straight to prison. You just go from juneile to prison.
I turned seventeen too fast, ended up going to Alto
State Prison, which was the worst prison in the State
of Georgia at that time. My biggest exposure to the games
was inside of the prison systems. After ten years being

(19:32):
in out then we started seeing these young boys coming
in that was from the same neighborhoods but worn with
each other because they from different games. Seeing how they
can call somebody from the outside might be homeing to
my need to take care of this, and they'll stab
somebody because somebody on the outside said, stab somebody and

(19:53):
catch more time in prison and be cool with it,
be okay with it. One of the scariest things of
my time in that place was I done by fifteen
years at that time, and the young guys coming in
and they're saying to each other, how much time you got, man?

(20:13):
I just got six man I got said eight, Well,
how much time you get? Major gave me ten. I'm
straight though, go down there waiting and all these young men,
none of them was older than nineteen, and they was
talking about time as if it was seconds. And then
they looked at me and said, well, how much time

(20:34):
you got? I just snapped on everybody because they don't
realize I just done fifteen. The screams, there's noise, The
sounds never stopped. It doesn't stop at night, and you
all think it's okay. It's not okay one day it's

(20:58):
not okay. Day is not okay. You've given up your
life in this environment to live in a cage. Why
everybody else around you live on outside.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
A kid who knows my reporting confronted me on a
Martyr train a few weeks ago. You're that police ass
reporter on the young thug case. He said he wasn't
happy with me. There are entire subreddits full of people
who are not happy with me. I was a rap
music fan when I started reporting on this trial, and
I still am. But I am no supporter of the
rap music industry. If ever, I was not all of it,

(21:42):
of course, just the part that is exploiting the pain
and poverty of Atlanta and other cities for profit. Hip
hop is worth about three billion a year in recorded
music sales, according to the industry tracker trap it Them
take Spotify's top two hundred performing rap artists, half their

(22:02):
revenue comes from the US South. Maybe a third of
that is Atlanta millions in sales, yet only a third
of top line revenue ends up with an artist at all.
About two thirds of that money goes to record labels
and publishing companies, collaborators, and billionaire music executives in Los Angeles,

(22:25):
New York and elsewhere. Warner Music is owned by the
Ukrainian American businessman Leonard Lavatnik. Warner Music also purchased three
hundred Entertainment, the label that launched Young Stoner Life Records
in twenty twenty one.

Speaker 4 (22:40):
Ahead of Young Thug's first bond hearing in summer twenty
twenty two, his defense team submitted over a dozen character
letters testifying on the artist behalf. One of those letters
from artist manager Benizaki, says that Young Thug once outfitted
a friend who was being released from prison. That's despite
how said friend tried to have him murdered.

Speaker 2 (22:59):
Out of jealousy.

Speaker 4 (23:01):
Another letter from three hundred Entertainment president Jeff ogan Lessi
remembers when Kanye West personally invited Young Thug to record
with him, but when his sisters weren't a part of
that invitation, Young Thug declined so that he wouldn't quote
hurt his siblings' feelings. As these character witnesses stress the
countless hours that Young Thug spends in the studio and

(23:23):
mentors his signees, prosecutors point to other possible motivations for
why all these music execs would not want Young Thug
flagged as a flight risk. Here's New York Times reporter
Joe Coscarelli.

Speaker 11 (23:36):
You know, you have Kevin Miles, who's the CEO of
three hundred and who presumably made many, many millions of
dollars on that deal, testifying on Young Thug's behalf and
arguing for him to be granted bail, saying that he
stands behind him personally and professionally, that he's only ever
seen him as a motivator and a positive member of

(23:57):
the community. And then you have the Die's office saying,
everyone here who's testifying about how great of a guy
Young Veggez has a financial interest in him, So you know,
it's quite complicated.

Speaker 1 (24:08):
Trapatol has noted that sixty five percent of the rap
music audience is white. As much as black people claim
rap broadly as its cultural product, gangster rap is a
black cultural product, is sold primarily to white people, and
apparently a subset of the audience is willing to pay
money for authentic gangsters rapping about shooting each other. Here's Costcarelli.

Speaker 11 (24:33):
I have not seen the music industry really held to
account for the way they do or do not engage
in the seriousness and the literalness of this music and
their artists. There's always another rapper from tough circumstances, rapping
about tough stuff for a label to sign, and I

(24:54):
think a lot of people wonder where the consequences are
for the people who are really making money off of
this stuff. You know, three hundred Entertainment The Home of
l sold for four hundred million dollars largely on the
backs of young Thugs music, along with others. So I
don't believe corporations are inclined to change unless the economics change,

(25:20):
unless the business changes, unless there are financial incentives to
do so I just don't think we've seen that yet.
If the audience stops listening to street rap, then maybe
the labels will sign something else. But you know, there
seems to still be that interest if you look at
the charts, you know, on Spotify or Apple Music, or
listen to the radio.

Speaker 1 (25:41):
For all the sublime creative power of the art of rap,
the market is uplifting street violence in the music and
the way minstrel shows were patronized when ragtime music was popular,
the same elements are there. Black people behaving with comically
loose morality, engaging in wild acts of violence, abusing women,

(26:06):
drinking and drug use, and extolling the virtues of luxury
brands to show off their apparent wealth. They even wore chains.
Minstrel shows made money because white people found it entertaining,
reinforcing their own sense of racial superiority. We frown upon
blackface these days, so we hire actual black people for

(26:29):
the job. Now. The more authentic to the role, the better.
Sometimes audiences will accept a fake in the way wrestling
fans accept staged cafe moves in the ring, but plainly
they prefer the real thing.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
To survive prison. Do you really have to dehumanize yourself
all the most because emotions to get you killed. But
I did all those years, and I remember looking at
the person in the mirror, and it's scared me. Literally,
the person who looked back at me scared because a
person who looked back at me wasn't human, he wasn't

(27:16):
as a person who didn't care what happened to you
or anybody else around you. I knew right then and there,
if I'm ever going to make home or become a
better person, the person staring at me gotta die. I
realized that I can't fight everybody, but I will outwork you.

(27:36):
I will out thank you. In this environment, the water
would come into the dormitory and say, hey, I want
everybody to move your pants from the top shelf and
put them in the bottom shelf when I get back tomorrow.
And guys were literally wants to go to the hole
about that, ready to fight. I'm not doing nothing. I
don't care what he's saying. I'm not doing nothing. What
are you gonna do? I key, I can move my

(27:58):
pants from the top shelf to the bottom shelf because
they're not my pants. This is not my locker box,
this is not my bed. I'm just only temporary borrowing
these things until I go home, And that mindset created
hope for me. I got up before they told me
to get up. I went to sleep before they told

(28:18):
me he went to sleep. The waters used to ship
me around from institution the institution to say I need
you to stop the gangs for fighting each other. I'll
get you home. And the moment I was able to
get their camps under control, they put me on the bus.
And that didn't happen one time, two times, three times,

(28:39):
it happened over ten times. They'll put me on the
bus and ship me to another cap.

Speaker 4 (28:50):
Looking back at those days of the Throwback Boys off
Cleveland Avenue in the early two thousands, CHUCKXY can't help
but wonder if the influence he had on young thug
demonstrating the opportunities available to him by way of music
was positive.

Speaker 7 (29:05):
I'm one of the person he's listening to, right So,
so when I hear about what happened to while I
find Loose's mother's house, right then I think back on
the song where I say disrespect that'll get your ass kicked,
shoot up your mama house and break your little brother's neck.
So when I think about me saying that rap and

(29:25):
him listening to that rap and then somebody mother's house
gets shot up, you know, I feel I feel a
certain you know what I'm saying a certain way, because
these was the lyrics that we were saying, and these
were the people. Young thug and his crew were the
people that was listening to take.

Speaker 2 (29:43):
It outside, Let's take it outside. Let's take it outside.
Let's take it outside.

Speaker 7 (29:47):
And that's what I feel kind of responsible for it
because we didn't set a good example. So of course
the people up under us didn't have a good example
to look at.

Speaker 1 (29:59):
Caro Confree, who leads Georgie's gang Prosecution unit at the
Attorney General's Office, concerns yourself with how much more quickly
such examples get spread today among an age group that
seems to get younger and younger each year, like as.

Speaker 12 (30:13):
Soon as you can throw up a sign, as soon
as you can articulate an affiliation, a loyalty to we've
seen it and heard it so young single digit ages.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
Kids, and among kids living in the social media age
in the city's most vulnerable communities.

Speaker 12 (30:31):
The promise of a lifestyle is the number one draw.
It's the primary vehicle that's marketed through is social media. Now,
when you can hold a device and see someone has
access to not only success, but material success. You know,
they've got stuff, They've got things, They've got jewelry, they've

(30:51):
got shoes, they've got clothes you want. They have attention
and celebrity. They've got this huge network of friends and influence.
And I think for young people, particularly young people in
communities that might not organically get exposed to that some
other way, that lifestyle is more than attractive. I mean,
it's it's incredibly compelling, and it's something that we as

(31:14):
a not just law enforcement community, but really as a society,
have to decide we're going to come together and try
to recruit in our own way, because it's the most
impossible thing to come up against.

Speaker 13 (31:28):
We the jury and the Abuff and Title Action find
the defendant or enthal James Simpson not guilty of a
crime of murder and violation of penal cult Section one
eighty seven a a felony upon Nicole Brown Simpson, a
human being, as charged in count one of the information.

Speaker 4 (31:45):
Chuck c can remember when OJ Simpson was acquitted for
the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goleman.

Speaker 7 (31:51):
We went outside as soon as we heard, and we
shot guns and the air. We went to live the
store a bottle bunch, and we celebrated. You know, we
felt like it was a win for all of us.

Speaker 4 (32:01):
He thinks that young folk getting acquitted would also have
people celebrating in the streets.

Speaker 7 (32:06):
This is definitely the OJ trial of out of this
time right here. Every street person will feel like they
want right, not just young thug, every street person, every
Y and Sale member, every ABG member, every person that
lives on Cleveland Avenue, everybody that lives on Jonesboro Road.
Everyone is going to feel like they want It. Won't

(32:29):
even be young thug beat the case on the streets.
It'll be we beat the case.

Speaker 1 (32:34):
Right.

Speaker 7 (32:34):
This is what the people are going to feel like
if he wins, or you know, praying.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
That he does.

Speaker 4 (32:43):
Cara Confrey couldn't disagree more.

Speaker 12 (32:45):
People in communities that have been victimized in this way
just want to feel seen and want to feel like
they matter. So I choose to maybe people will be
celebrating the streets. I don't think so, though. I think
people get it.

Speaker 4 (32:57):
She says that Atlanta's police Chief Darren views the YSL
indictment as a productive step forward to combat that influence.
She remembers a recent training session where he boasted of
the immediate aftermath.

Speaker 12 (33:10):
One of the things he talked about is the effect
on crime that we saw after the YSL indictment dropped,
which is we saw crime numbers kind of dip down
right after the publication of the indictment itself. But his
big thing was an experience, an individual experience he had
as just a human being walking through Cleveland into an
apartment complex that had been just totally terrorized by YSL

(33:34):
and the violence that came with them, and their conflicts
and stuff they had going on in that community. He
walked into the community on foot, and a lady approached
him and just said, you know, can I talk to you.
I just want to thank you because it is the
first sort of couple weeks of peace that I've had,
and thank you for caring about this community, for caring

(33:54):
about people like me that live here that are not
in YSL.

Speaker 1 (33:58):
Crime has indeed fallen. It's fallen off a cliff, though
most notably east of where Cleveland Avenue is located. Oddly enough,
crime has remained stubbornly high in Zone three, which includes
Cleveland Avenue. Those crime numbers also don't account for tensions
that have boiled over inside Rice Street, the overcrowded Fulton

(34:19):
County Jail, and the state prisons, tensions that were displayed
to horrifying effect at Spring twenty twenty three with a
cell phone video that leaked from behind state prison walls.
A warning, the audio from this video is graphic, slim.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
There's not wholy rovi bless so in them. It's might
you slang, lack candidition of both the living about crime each.

Speaker 1 (34:52):
The inmate holding the cell phone is pitting down another
inmate who has been gagged and hog tied, and then
takes a blade against the victim's skin as if to
literally scrape the YL tattoo inked on his arm. If
hip Hop's social media is to be believed, then the
assault is associated with YFN. Devin Franklin is the Movement

(35:15):
Policy Council at the Southern Center for Human Rights. He's
worried about the violent conditions that YL defendants live under
at state prisons and on Rice Street.

Speaker 14 (35:26):
The main charging is why I say okas are still
in a really uncomfortable place, crowded, and violence of the
jail has been up.

Speaker 2 (35:37):
There are.

Speaker 14 (35:40):
Shortages and staff with the Fulton County Sheriff's Department. They
don't have enough people for the jail when it's not overcrowded.
They really don't have enough staff to keep personal and
custody safe who are currently there. And to add on
to that fact, you have brought people back who are

(36:00):
from who were in prison, they were down the road
at whatever state prison to come back to forth and
to face trials. And you know, when you're already serving
the life centers, you have a lot of violence. You
have what we have being told of rival gangs in there,
and they're under really inhumane circumstances, and I think it
may lead towards people acting in really aggressive ways, sometimes.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
In an effort to keep the powder keg at Rice
straight from exploding into all out of chaos. Young Thug
has been held at Cobb and County Jail. Cobb's not
exactly the Ritz Carlton. All of Atlanta's jails have issues
with violence, but his move there does keep him somewhat
isolated from his alleged wis hel Co worts and perhaps
more importantly, his alleged wife and enemies, including wife and Lucci.

(36:50):
In twenty twenty two, before the yst Hel indictment named
wife and Lucci is a suspect and alleged rival gang member,
Lucci had landed his own RICO charge. He's been in
Rice Street since January thirteenth, twenty twenty one. No exceptions
were made for him, and when the YSL trial began,
the YFN trial was postponed, which means Luci's been living

(37:15):
in the be's nest even longer, and as we've mentioned before,
says that he's been stabbed in two separate incidents by
YL defendants. But things would change dramatically for both the
YFN and YSL cases because of another event.

Speaker 15 (37:33):
The Fulton County Sheriff's office says all defendants will be
booked into the Rice Street Jail. Sheriff Pat Labat has
previously said those defendants will be treated like any other detainee.

Speaker 3 (37:43):
And have a mug shot.

Speaker 4 (37:45):
It's August twenty fourth, twenty twenty three, and the roads
leading to Rice Street are lined with spectators. At the
Fulton County Jail itself, hordes of people stand behind barricades
summer supporters red maga hats, blue and red flags. A
row wears T shirts to say blacks for Trump and
summer protesters. One down's a prisoner costume, as if he

(38:07):
came straight from party City. Others are in full body
rat suits. But most of the people here are reporters.

Speaker 8 (38:15):
So right now we have crews outside of the Fulton
County Jail to make sure you know what to expect
today and let it do his first Rebecca Schran begins
our live team coverage near the jail's main entrance.

Speaker 1 (38:24):
The sun is just starting to set and lights from
TV crews give the street an eerie green glow. Helicopters
buzz overhead. It's carefully controlled chaos and expected but unprecedented event,
the end result of years of political and legal wrangling,
broken faith, and growing discord. At this moment, all eyes

(38:50):
are on Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (38:51):
Outside of Atlanta's Fulton County Jail, heightened.

Speaker 6 (38:54):
Security as the sheriff braces for Donald Trump to surrender
once he turns himself in deputy.

Speaker 4 (39:01):
In anticipation, on Instagram, a club and restaurant called Sweet
Food Lounge promoted its Welcome to Race Street party two
hundred dollar bottles and free hookah for ladies.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Former President Donald Trump arrives by motor catad approximately seven
thirty PM. He's ushered in through the Fulton County Jail,
away from the hoard, shielded from reporters. He's in and
out in less than fifteen minutes, and just a few
hours later, his mugshot will be on nearly every television

(39:32):
in the country. Perhaps the most famous image in the
history of American democracy.

Speaker 16 (39:38):
The mugshot of the forty fifth president of the United
States will go from tomorrow's newspapers in two hour history books,
where the only presidential mugshot will live forever.

Speaker 4 (39:50):
But a far less indelible image is captured outside of
Race Street that night, one that will make a few
quiet circles on social media but will mostly be swallowed
in the tidal wave of Trump coverage. It's of an
older black man with a bald head and a thin
sprout of facial hair on his chin. He's wearing a
black T shirt that reads free y A Cell, and

(40:11):
huge all caps block letters in a similar font on
a black poster board sign that he holds. There's a
message It reads free why a Cell? Trump and Crue
got a bond. Young Thug and y Cel face the
zach sane charges, but no bond. Make justice fair. We
deserve a fair fight too, Fani. It's signed Jeffrey Williams, Senior,

(40:35):
Young Thug's dad.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
Why did Donald Trump, who is accused of leading a
violent insurrection to overthrow the nation's democracy, an insurrection that
led to one death, countless injuries, one point five million
dollars in damages, and prison sentences some decades long for participants,
get a two hundred thousand dollars bond and one that

(41:01):
cuts stay in the notorious Rice Street jailed down to
a fifteen minute photo op. The court uses something called
the Ayala factors to decide whether someone gets a bond.
A judge considers a defendant's community ties, their employment status
in history, whether they've run before or committed crimes while
out on bond, and their past criminal record. A judge

(41:24):
is also supposed to consider whether a defendant is likely
to threaten witnesses, which with Trump is an open question.
He's been warned by judges for doing just that in
other trials. The difference between Donald Trump and Young Thug
is that Trump is surrounded by Secret Service officers cops

(41:45):
wherever he goes. I suppose that gets Trump the benefit
of the doubt, where young Thug doesn't. Whether Trump's reco
indictment and subsequent spectacle will bog down the gears of
justice for YSL is an open question and when we
won't know the answer to for a while, but a big,
high profile case that takes up at an ordinate amount

(42:07):
of the Fulton County courthouses resources can certainly have that effect.
Just ask why if and Aluchi.

Speaker 2 (42:22):
There was a water named brad Hooks and the institution
was going into a riot all over the state of Georgia.
And we was in Roger State Prison, and he said,
the commissioner wants to know would his camp sit down
in this riot. I told him give me a week,
and I got it. All of the game members from
the Crypts, the Bloods, the Aryan Nation, all of them.

(42:44):
And I told them to come and meet in the library,
and I used to water and to leave them alone,
let them bring their henchmen, their two bodyguards with them
like the good fellas. And they marched down the aisle
with their chests out. Because I realized some people, if
you give them a sense of power, even though they
don't have any power, they'll respond to what you're telling them.

(43:06):
And we sat at that round table. They stood back
with their henchmans behind them, and I explained to them,
I've been here for twenty five years. These bricks don't burn.
I've been there, done that. You'll lose your phones, your drugs,
your connections, some of the females that y'all sleeping with.
That's goa all gonna be going. We're gonna sit in
the cell and eat sandwiches out of a sack for

(43:28):
the next six months. I'm going to work what y'all
want to do. And at the table they decided we
all going to work here. Keep the water off of
our backs. I said, that's all we gotta do. And
Rogers didn't go into a riot the water. He wrote
a letter to the parole board and said, this kid,
if you sitting him home, I'll put my pension on

(43:51):
the line. Then he'll never come back. He'll never come back.

Speaker 4 (44:02):
In September twenty twenty two, Lashawn Thompson was found dehydrated, malnourished,
and unresponsive in the jail's psychiatric wing.

Speaker 10 (44:10):
The family of a man who died in the Fulton
County Jail says he was eaten alive in his cell
by bedbugs and insects.

Speaker 17 (44:18):
He died in September after a three months stay at
the jail. Photos provided by the family's lawyers show a
jail sale and deplorable condition and the dead detainee covered
in bugs.

Speaker 4 (44:31):
His body was found covered in bites and sores from
bedbugs and lice, conditions that yielded a Department of Justice
investigation into the jail and a four million dollars settlement
with Thompson's family. Thompson is one of twenty two people
who have died inside the jail since twenty twenty two.
Ten of those victims have died from January twenty twenty

(44:52):
three until this recording in early September alone. One of
the latest was Samuel Lawrence, who on August twenty second
hand wrote a twelve page plea to official seeking relief,
relief from a cell that didn't have running water, a
working toilet or a mattress to sleep on, relief from
hits and bruises to his ribcage, and for medical staff

(45:15):
who said that if he continued suicide attempts, they would
quote call Drug Court coordinators to interfere with me getting out.
One of the last lines in his note was that
he hoped to quote see some justice, peace, sanity.

Speaker 1 (45:31):
Samuel Lawrence was not a guilty man. He was a
man who stood accused of a crime, awaiting his day
in court in a place where presumed innocence is a luxury,
seemingly few are afforded these days. Our producer Tommy Andres
asked Fannie Willis about this during our interview.

Speaker 18 (45:48):
So, Atlanta jails are a pretty dangerous place these days.
Several men who are charged in some of these high
profile cases are being held in jail for a long
periods of time without being convicted. I wonder what you
think about that sort of from your perch.

Speaker 10 (46:02):
I think that we have a lot of violent defenders
in the fulln County jail, and that's what I think.

Speaker 18 (46:09):
Does it concern you at all that those men, unconvicted
men's lives may.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Be at risk obviously sitting here.

Speaker 10 (46:16):
I have to be concerned about the safety of people
while they're in jail, because I think people are entitled
to dignity, that they need to be in safe spaces,
that they need to live in humane conditions quite frankly,
I've been here a long time. That jail has been
disgusting for a long time. I think that there's a
real responsibility to build a jail to make sure that

(46:37):
people live in humane conditions. So from that standpoint, am
I concerned?

Speaker 2 (46:42):
Yes?

Speaker 10 (46:44):
Now, you know, violent crime is down right, that's the
reality you can't deal you know, my daddy say deal
with reality or reality will deal with you. A lot
of violent offenders are being held and being convicted and
being sentenced down the road, and in terms of people
that are convicted and held accountable that I'm proud of.

Speaker 2 (47:11):
When I came home, I created a job. I was
a sentizing consultant. I made that job up. I've literally
made it up. Most lawyers grow up in neighborhoods that
not likely definish their defending, and most people don't trust
public offenders. I was the liaison between both of them
to help the communication bridge work better. So I went

(47:33):
from there and I got hired for the Department of
Juvenile Justice. They literally changed the laws so I can
get hired. Because I still was a failure. I wrote
a program called Step to Change. It was for young
men who were tried as an adults. How do you
make that transition from child to adult in that environment?
Nobody was teaching that, So we're beginning to teach that.

(47:55):
And we stopped the violence of teenagers being tried as adults.
We stopped them want to kill each other, harm each other.
And a friend of mine who worked for the Public
Finder's Office said, Madam Dave was looking for a speaker
to come to a leadership training. So I came and
I did a one day event and it was just

(48:16):
it was it was awesome. She called me and at
the end of the day, I think you could do more.
What is it gonna take for you to come work
for me? She's she's she's a go getter. Right then
she says, said, what did I fin you? She said,
you were catching kids after they're convicted. I want you

(48:36):
to catch them before they even come to me, catch
them before they even come to me. I want to
put you in the front of the line. And they
were like the God moment for me, this is the
opportunity to stop them from going down that way.

Speaker 1 (48:57):
Doctor Maurice Hobson remembers when he first heard about the
charge just against young.

Speaker 7 (49:00):
Thug November between twenty one because it was the same
day as the Braves, the Braves that won the World
series Friends.

Speaker 1 (49:14):
That's because I had asked him whether he had heard
of some of it's defended it's including Young Thug.

Speaker 3 (49:18):
I mean, this person who has the resources.

Speaker 7 (49:20):
He means me, and they kind of like, listen, if
you know anything about this crew, like somebody's watching them,
and if you just know, you might need to tell
them that, like they need to get it together.

Speaker 1 (49:31):
Indeed, the professor had since around twenty fourteen.

Speaker 7 (49:35):
Young Thug got some banging ass beats and strips shit
talking to I mean, you know what really made me
really stop patches of the Young Thug is him until
if it ain't about the money, I was like, man,
they hate talk us to real shit this thing.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
Man.

Speaker 1 (49:47):
After our conversations, Doctor Hobson starts making phone calls.

Speaker 7 (49:52):
So I leave the spot where I am and I
just go to the I call a producer in the
city and I'm like, hey, would you happen to know
Young thugenhem And they were like yeah yeah, And I
was like, well, I mean I need to come see
you because I just got a message I need to
give you. So I was like, well, listen when they

(50:15):
say RICO, they already got somebody who's giving up information.

Speaker 3 (50:20):
And I listen, I'm not in the streets.

Speaker 7 (50:21):
But hell, I know that I didn't just because I'm
not in the streets on the mean, I don't understand
what's going on here.

Speaker 4 (50:28):
Doctor Hobson is author of the book The Legend of
the Black Mecha, Politics and Class and the Making of
Modern Atlanta. Hobson traces the making of that legend all
the way back to eighteen sixty four, when after Abraham
Lincoln commissions General William Sherman to burn down Atlanta during
the Civil War. Newly freed slaves settled into the city

(50:49):
that had burned ashes.

Speaker 7 (50:51):
Black people received equal protection and do process under the
law before the passes of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
Hobson then explores the great a legacy of Atlanta's black
political leadership, that unbroken streak of black mayors in the
city starting in nineteen seventy four with the city's first
black mayor, Maynard Jackson. But he says as that same
political leadership led Atlanta's bid to host the nineteen ninety
six Olympics, the city also threatened to shut out if

(51:19):
not physically displaced. It's underclass.

Speaker 3 (51:22):
The world assumes that all black people are modeling.

Speaker 7 (51:25):
There's an educated elite that's that's a particular tract. There
was a merchant class, an entrepreneurial class that's a different
tract being. You have the rise of a political class
that marries some of this, and then you have the
working class and four who were So it's this tension
that goes on here.

Speaker 4 (51:46):
If it wasn't for the rap group's outcast and goodie
Moms specifically, the world might not have heard from Atlanta's
working class at this time. Decades before you'd see Germaine Dupree, Ludacris,
and Killer Mike's face on that giant screen greeting visitors
arriving at Hartsville Jackson Airports. Domestic terminal outcasts recorded and
an album interlude called Welcome to Atlanta, where the voice

(52:08):
of a pilot points out to passengers how the Georgia
Dome still flies the Confederate battle flag, and how parts
of Atlanta's South side are home to the Red Dogs,
as in the controversial crack era police unit whose name
stood for run Every Drug Dealer out of Georgia. Atlanta's
hip hop legacy has evolved since then, and doctor Hobson

(52:28):
confesses that he's critical of trap music, specifically.

Speaker 7 (52:32):
When we start talking about like trap and all that
kind of stuff, Like, I can't glorify that as if
it's a way of life, but I do understand that
it was a mechanism for some of these young gen
x is to kind of get out of issues, get
out of the streets.

Speaker 3 (52:50):
And so it's complicated for me.

Speaker 7 (52:53):
For people in Atlanta, you know, off bank Head and
you know off you know what used to be Simpson Road,
and then you know, kind of get into Cleveland Avenue
and whatever whatnot. Like they're not looking for some kind
of self righteous kind of person. They're looking for someone
who understands them and recognizes that they need help. So
that doesn't always come in the package of I got

(53:14):
to be a preacher or I got to.

Speaker 4 (53:15):
Be a teacher without the music. Without that recognition, the
legend that doctor Hobson has so carefully studied wouldn't live
on because the odds for a large portion of the
black population in Atlanta are grim.

Speaker 7 (53:29):
I wrote this book the legend of the Black Meca
of politics and class and making them out of Atlanta,
and people often try to conflate the legend with the myth.
There's a reason I named it the legend, And what
I'm saying is that a myth is something fictitious. With
every legend, there is truth. We have to figure out
what's real and what isn't. But the one truth about

(53:51):
Atlanta as a Black mecca is the creative culture that
comes out of here. I mean, like people from all
over the Black world have been able to come here
and produce music and movie, movies and content in particular ways.

Speaker 3 (54:04):
That is the true legacy of the Black Mecca.

Speaker 1 (54:11):
It's hard to predict how the wisl trial will turn out,
especially before a jury has been seated, but regardless of
the verdict, this trial has already had an impact in Atlanta.

Speaker 4 (54:22):
There's long been this disconnect between how the world views
Atlanta's musical influence and how those who run the city
actually acknowledge that influence. In twenty eighteen, Stacy abrams gubernatorial
campaign got a catchy anthem, a remix of the song
win by Jay Rock. Jay Rock is from Los Angeles.

(54:43):
When Atlanta hosted Super Bowl fifty three and twenty nineteen,
the leading halftime act was Maroon five, Big Boy of
Outcast played a mere supporting role, and in twenty twenty two,
the Atlanta Falcons revealed its new theme song by Routini,
an acter singer known for for his role in the
TV show Power O. Temmy is from New Jersey. Bank

(55:05):
Joiner doesn't see Atlanta hip hop being any better represented
in light of the trial, not when the why Cell
trial is still pending. Perhaps as a convenient excuse.

Speaker 8 (55:15):
My guy at us Bank and Elevan, they're running a
small black business campaign out Atlanta, and.

Speaker 18 (55:26):
They say that.

Speaker 8 (55:27):
They can't find artists without a rap sheet, so.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
They land or Music Soul.

Speaker 4 (55:35):
Child Music soul Child, while a revered singer songwriter is
from Philadelphia.

Speaker 8 (55:41):
What you hear is everybody saying Atlanta is the home
and hip hop and all of this, but when it
starts coming to corporate America tapping that they only know
as much surface knowledge as they know.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
And so the.

Speaker 8 (55:56):
Falcons said, tis in trouble man must not be anybody else. Now,
Ji d huge fan of the Falcons Earth Gang, So
these acts ain't nobody shooting up. They bus Earth Gang
went to May's High School, Southwest Atlanta.

Speaker 2 (56:13):
Being Hill and.

Speaker 8 (56:17):
You still don't hear these acts from viewing O three
to you know, dare I say, iHeartRadio. And because of
the lack of infrastructure, there's no cultural liaison to God brands,
to you know whatever. No one knows what to do,

(56:40):
So the YSL trial people are using that as an
excuse to not tap in any further win.

Speaker 4 (56:50):
Producer Dune Deal and I chatted about the y CEL indictment.
He was looking to sign his own artists. When it
comes to rap Atlanta Zone, Gucci Mean has set a
gold standard in town for discovering talent. He's been called
the city's best unofficial an are for having discovered artists
like Walk a Flalk of Flame. He's opened up his
brick factory studio to artists like Migos and Young Thug

(57:10):
himself early in his career before he got his teeth
fixed for Done Deal, though that standard doesn't necessarily hold today.
How does all of this affect that talent? Does it
have any effect on that talent scouting ability? Is this
something that you're considering as you're looking for a potential talent?

Speaker 7 (57:29):
Yeah, for sure. It makes me think about is it
look look at Gucci like I love Gucci's death. But
two of your main artists get arrested, How can you
help yourself? How can you help them and help yourself

(57:50):
in the situation. So I think you kind of have
to to look for somebody that doesn't put you in
a situation that's bad.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
Like it's getting a little bit out of hand.

Speaker 4 (58:05):
The trial could also stand to change Atlanta hip hop's
relationship with its own city. Dundale has chatted with other
artists and producers since the Wiseel indictment arrived in twenty
twenty two. Those people no longer want to work in Atlanta.
Here's what he told me previously.

Speaker 3 (58:22):
Their vibe is gone.

Speaker 7 (58:23):
They don't want to come to a studio and work
knowing that their brothers got locked.

Speaker 1 (58:28):
Up out here.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
Willie Prophet Stiggers, co founder of the Black Music Action Coalition,
can also remember a time when it was easier to
connect with its music scene.

Speaker 19 (58:38):
Most of the artists in Atlanta are leaving Atlanta and
going to other places to live in or get creative.
Look around. There's a time you can walk into a
public so walk it anywhere and see Atlanta artists, you know,
moving around the streets as common as you've seen other people.
You don't see that as often today. When you throw
something like a Rico case on someone where you only

(59:00):
need conspiracy to be a part of that, it becomes
very difficult for creators to want to work with folks
not knowing shit. If even being in the room or
being on the record with you that shit may indict
my ass, you know what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 (59:15):
The prophet says that this phenomenon doesn't begin with the
y Sel indicement. He says Atlanta artists were spooped one
month before they sell indicement when Georgia Governor Brian Camp
signed a bill that allowed residents to carry a concealed
handgun in public without a permit.

Speaker 19 (59:33):
Now you don't need concealed carriers permit to move around
Atlanta with guns anymore.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
So.

Speaker 19 (59:41):
Now any and everybody's just walking freely with pistols with ars,
you know. And when you're dealing with already trauma, community
does lacking resources, does lacking opportunity, and then you have
an open carry policy, it's a recipe for disaster.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
I'm gotta tell you, that's just an extremely interesting observation
that you're giving us right now, that this like this
question of violence in the street was starting to affect
hip hop be in Atlanta even before young Thuck.

Speaker 3 (01:00:16):
Oh one thousand percent.

Speaker 19 (01:00:17):
This is why many in the coaches looking at this
like are you serious? Like Atlanta has been it has
been tough out here, you know, it's been tough, it's
been dangerous.

Speaker 1 (01:00:31):
In our interview with Fanny Willis, the district attorney said this.

Speaker 10 (01:00:35):
We cannot arrest our way and we cannot prosecute our
way out of the gang problem. That's gonna fail. So
what we have to do is make sure that we
take as many children away from thinking that this is
sexy and this is attractive and leading them down different paths.
And so you have to have a double edged sword.

Speaker 1 (01:00:55):
And true to our word, Madame da has been sharpening
the other edge of that sword.

Speaker 2 (01:01:00):
So we own a program like this and from the
DiscT Attorney's office to reach program in the United States
of Americland that a district attorney has created a program
to help change the minds of youth to think better,
to thanks stronger for themselves, to become leaders inside of
the school system during school hours.

Speaker 4 (01:01:20):
At the start of the twenty twenty two to twenty
twenty three school year, the Fulton County District Attorney's Office
launched a novel program meant to slow down gang recruitment,
a program led by a man with some particularly relevant
experience and a uniquely tailored set of skills.

Speaker 2 (01:01:37):
When there's a Keen Wooden and Director Juvenile Services for
the fourteen County District Attorney's.

Speaker 1 (01:01:42):
Office, word it oversees a weekly class that targets at
risk youth in Fulton County schools. He brings in detectives, investigators,
and survivors of gang violence to speak. The program is
called Reach.

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Gang's commodity is children, it's people. It's not money. They
can have money, but eventually, what can you do with
it other than just spending it by thing? But they
need more members. The Reach program is to educate, elevate,
and to stop that flow of kids into into games

(01:02:18):
to say no.

Speaker 4 (01:02:19):
But the most powerful mentor that program may be Woodard himself.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
Kind of opened the door for a lot of them.
Was I told my story that I've been to I've
been through the pain. I've been through the hurt, I've
been through the neglect. I've been through left behind, I've
been through left to die. I've been hits put on
my head while I was in the prison. So I've
been through all that.

Speaker 4 (01:02:39):
Last year, one hundred and thirty five students went through
the program at six different middle schools and high schools.

Speaker 2 (01:02:45):
You know, eighty five percent of our children in Atlanta,
they're great kids, man, they are great kids. Even in
bad environments. They are good kids. They're fighting, trying to
go to school, to trying to make it right. And
then there's a ten percent of our popular who are
like moths. They are attracted to the light. They're attracted

(01:03:06):
to it. Whatever the light is, brighter, they are attracted
to it. But then that's a five percent of our
population who are the lights. We spend too much time
locking up moths and not lights.

Speaker 1 (01:03:21):
So while there's a flashy trial happening on television being
picked over by journalists like us, there's a quieter fight
happening down the road now at eighteen schools in counting
and hopes that there will be no more reco trials
indicting gang members in the years to come in Fulton
County and potentially beyond.

Speaker 2 (01:03:42):
There's a psychological war going on for our children. But
the only thing majority of society see is the physical war.
We keep attacking these physical war lock them up, stop them,
do this, trains this, but the cycle logical war. We
have yet put boots on the ground to begin to

(01:04:05):
fight that part of the war.

Speaker 4 (01:04:14):
We asked Stephan Franklin to imagine a scenario where Young
Thug was acquitted of all charges. That possibility wouldn't necessarily
bode well for the artists who could come after him.

Speaker 14 (01:04:23):
I don't envision a world where the movers and shakers
of the Georgia political and legal scene.

Speaker 3 (01:04:33):
Turn their gaze away from gang Lass.

Speaker 14 (01:04:35):
I would be fearful that they've tried to find ways
to make it easier to convict someone based on the
fact that was able to quote unquote beat the charges.

Speaker 4 (01:04:46):
Hypothetically, those convictions could begin with a document that started
circulating around social media shortly after Young Thug was indicted,
rumored to be a comprehensive list of gangs on the
Georgia Gang Unit's wanted list. That list raised eyebrows because
YSL was on it, but so was four PF or
four Pockets Full, the name of the crew turned label

(01:05:07):
founded by another Atlanta megastar, Little Baby, Because there was
no header to be seen. It was honestly impossible to
tell whether the images of that document were real or fake,
and so we decided to check. So to speak with
Cara Confrey, she's hesitant at first.

Speaker 12 (01:05:25):
Let me stick with the first and non controversial one.
So I think YSL is a very real criminal enterprise.
It operates in and around Atlanta. Is this like a
I don't know, why are you comfortable with me?

Speaker 7 (01:05:37):
And Sana?

Speaker 4 (01:05:39):
She's asking whatever handlers seated tour left inside this conference room.

Speaker 12 (01:05:43):
YSL is one example of that. But we've got all
kinds of other things. I think you mentioned PDE, PFK, DFW,
all kinds of groups like that.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
To those groups share the names with record labels that
boasted rising rap stars. PD features Baby Drill. In summer
of twenty twenty three, Baby Drill was featured in a
music video by Lano and Cardi B. Two months later,
the DA's office and dyeted eight alleged PDE gang members.

Speaker 4 (01:06:13):
PFK stands for Play for Keeps. The Crew Turn label
boasted one of Little Baby's closest collaborators, the rapper Little Marlowe,
before he was shot and killed in twenty twenty.

Speaker 12 (01:06:23):
I mean I could go, I mean, I'm challenging you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:29):
He go on three.

Speaker 4 (01:06:30):
But Cambrey protests, saying that any alleged gang that she's
aware of could easily rebrand itself. So we press her
on specific example, is four PF on y'all's radar?

Speaker 12 (01:06:41):
When you say so four PF is an active hybrid
in the city, I would say absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:06:46):
Slaughter Gang. Yes, Slaughter Gang is the name of both
a record label and entertainment company by twenty one Savage,
the same artist who's arrested by Ice, inspired the Rap
Act to limit the use of lyrics as criminal evidence. Meanwhile,
the DA's office in twenty one's native to Cab County,

(01:07:07):
is alleged that Cook Darius Dorsey, one of the YSL defendants,
is also affiliated with Slaughter Gang. I saw this social
media freak out of oh my god, they're gonna go
after a little baby or something like that, right, or
name a rapper like.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
The uh.

Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
There was this whole moment where there was a whose
next conversation like is that still legitimate? Like or should
should people? Should we be looking at it? Should rappers
be looking around?

Speaker 2 (01:07:40):
Like the mind coming?

Speaker 3 (01:07:40):
I mean, are they coming for me? So?

Speaker 12 (01:07:43):
It's not illingual to be in a gang, but if
you are meaningfully affiliated with the gang and you are
doing criminal acts to facilitate those objectives, yes, regardless of
who you are.

Speaker 4 (01:07:57):
The question of whether young Thug will be found innocent
or guilty is not one for us to speculate about.
That's for the jury to decide. Our job has been
to examine the social, economic, and cultural forces swirling around
this trial and to help understand its impact regardless of
the verdict. But one of the things we've discovered is
that even when the verdict is reached, an n might

(01:08:19):
not be reached.

Speaker 1 (01:08:20):
Credible informants who wish to remain anonymous tell us that
Fulton County isn't the only entity that's been investigating YSL.
Almost immediately after Donovan Peanut Thomas was gunned down outside
of Ann and M barbershop, the FBI and other federal
agencies formed a task force gathering information on the alleged

(01:08:41):
street war between YSL and YFN all on its own.
That task force's name Operation Planters. Consider that Kenneth Copeland
Lie Woodie, who was arrested in twenty twenty one on
a gun charge, basically fell off the face of the
earth after that arrest. The day charges were dropped, it

(01:09:02):
was plainly on the hook for a federal case, but
there's nothing visible in the federal record. Perhaps the Justice
Department was merciful, but it's also possible that Copeland's charges
were filed under seal to protect a federal witness. The
Feds have seven years of evidence, and they're watching this

(01:09:24):
trial as closely as anyone.

Speaker 4 (01:09:44):
Normally. Here's where we'd say next time on King Slime,
but after this episode, we'll be taking a bit of
a break to let the Wiseol trial unfold. While the
number of defendants have dwindled from twenty eight to just seven,
and while jury's selection began all the way back in
Janeanuary twenty twenty three, not a single juror has actually
been seated. What's more, as we tape this episode, prosecutors

(01:10:07):
have doubled their witness list and only recently turned in
three hundred thousand documents that the defense must review to
prepare their arguments. All of which is to say, we
still don't know when opening statements will actually take place,
So to make sure you don't miss a new episode
when we start up again, hit, subscribe or follow on
your podcast app of choice. King Slime is a production

(01:10:35):
of iHeart Podcasts and Heirloom Media.

Speaker 1 (01:10:38):
It's written and produced by George Cheaty, Christina Lee.

Speaker 4 (01:10:41):
And Tommy Andres, mixing sound design and original music by
Evan Tyre and Tayler Shakoginne.

Speaker 1 (01:10:47):
The executive producer and editor.

Speaker 4 (01:10:49):
Is Tommy Andres, fact checking by Kaylin lynch.

Speaker 1 (01:10:52):
Our theme music is by Done.

Speaker 4 (01:10:54):
Deal Special thanks to Carl Catl, Tyler Klang, Jack O'Brien,
Nancy Stoltz, and wil Pearson, and to.

Speaker 1 (01:11:01):
The Atlanta news outlets eleven Alive, WSBTV, Atlanta News First,
and Fox five.

Speaker 4 (01:11:07):
For more shows from iHeart Podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.