George Chidi | King Slime, The Trial of Young Thug and YSL

Payne sits down with George Chidi, journalist and host of the gripping podcast "King Slime: The Trial of Young Thug and YSL". George provides an in-depth look into the high-profile trial, unpacking the complex web of allegations surrounding Young Thug and the YSL gang. With his insider knowledge and investigative prowess, Chidi sheds light on the legal battles, the personalities involved, and the broader implications for the music industry and criminal justice system. Don’t miss this compelling discussion on one of the most talked-about trials in recent memory.

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Talking to Death is released every Friday and brought to
you absolutely free. But if you want ad free listening
and exclusive bonuses, subscribe to Tenderfoot Plus at tenderfootplus dot
com or on Apple Podcasts.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Talking to Death is a production of tenderfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
Listener discretion is advised.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Welcome back. I am not payin Lindsay, but Dylan Harrington,
producer of the show, Pain and Mike are actually both
traveling today capturing some new interviews with some really exciting guests.
More on that later. So yeah, let's just jump right
into the episode. Today's guest is George Cheaty. He's a
journalist and political commentator here in Atlanta. He also writes

(00:43):
for a lot of other publications nationally. We were introduced
to George through our podcast partner, iHeart Podcasts. He has
a show with iHeart called King Slime The Prosecution of
Young Thug and YSL. For the last year or so,
he's been covering the Young Thug YSL trial. If you've
been living under a rock and have no idea who
Young Thug is, he's a hip hop artist rapper. About

(01:05):
a year ago, Young Thug was arrested in Atlanta for
a slew of crimes, including racketeering which he's facing a
RICO charge for drug possession, weapons charges, attempted murder, and
street gang activity. The trial involves twenty seven members of
the YSL gang. He does a great job breaking down
everything that's going on with the Young Thug trial. If

(01:26):
you're into hip hop, if you're into criminal trial breakdowns,
he's your guy. Here's an interesting tidbit for you. Before
Payne and I worked in podcast, we actually both worked
in music videos here in Atlanta, and both of us
independently made music videos for Young Thug, So we both
have sort of a personal connection to him and to
this story and to seeing how this trial unfolds. So

(01:48):
even if you haven't heard of it, or you're very
into it and following it every day, this conversation with
George is going to be really fascinating. He knows everything
about it. He's able to break it down and make
it all make sense. George also talks about a lot
of other things on top of the case, things that
are related like crime, gang violence, and homelessness and poverty issues,
and he's just he's really an authority figure on all

(02:09):
of these things. So even if those things interest you,
this conversation's worth listening to. But anyway, yeah, that's enough
for me. Why don't we just jump right into the interview.
Today's guest is George Cheaty, four.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Score and seven years ago our forefathers brought forth upon it.
You have a good podcast voice? Yeah I could. Yeah,
I was radioish for a little while and now I
feel better.

Speaker 4 (02:44):
Okay, what do you mean?

Speaker 2 (02:46):
In college? It's like campus radio.

Speaker 1 (02:48):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (02:48):
The irony is that my partner did really, really well.
I was at UMass doing campus radio with Audie Cornish,
formerly of NPR, like Things Considered from like ten twelve.
She went off to go do NPR and I went
off to go write about tech, and she knew how
to do it. Damn.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Did you like the way it felt doing the radio
stuff back then?

Speaker 2 (03:12):
It was interesting. It's much more like podcasting in that,
like you kind of have to make it up as
you go. Yeah, you're like you have tremendous freedom, Like
what am I gonna do? What am I gonna talk about?
What are we what are we reporting on right now?
All right, let's go figure that out. Like how do
we get in front of an audience. Okay, let's go
figure that out, Like what does our recruiting look like? Like,

(03:33):
how are we staffing this thing? Like what's our equipment? Like,
just go figure everything out. Like we're pretty much starting
from scratch, which is like every damn podcaster in the
world right now.

Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah exactly, that's like that's a through line with almost
all podcasts, right, We're just figuring it out at that part.

Speaker 4 (03:47):
I like, of course, so you're not.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Like not getting paid, right, the lack of a huge paycheck.

Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, lack of a huge paycheck. That's what got me
out of the radio stuff. Was like, uh huh, I
just I don't see myself making real money at this
and go find a magazine. And that didn't work. I
did for a little while, and then I got dumb.

Speaker 4 (04:11):
So what do you mass What would you study?

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I studied journalism.

Speaker 4 (04:15):
Did you always want to do that?

Speaker 2 (04:16):
Now? I started off as a microbiology major? So no,
I I My life is a fucking train wreck too,
So I'm not good. Are we a sweary podcast?

Speaker 1 (04:27):
Like?

Speaker 2 (04:27):
Well, thank goodness, yeah, because I'm from Massachusetts. Yeah, that's
some of these Dennis fucking Leary thing's gonna come here.
You this, by the way, is not an affectation, Like
I sound like Albert Brooks because that's how I grew up.
Like this is just who I am.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
You're not putting it on.

Speaker 2 (04:42):
No, Like I can't code switch. If I could, I'd
like my life would be different. The uh Like I
was the one black kid in school, like you know that,
Like I rememb where.

Speaker 4 (04:53):
You went from.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
I grew up in Kansall, Georgia suburbs and there was
like two black kids in my class.

Speaker 2 (04:57):
Yeah I'm that kid. Okay, what do you mass the
he was going to go be a doctor? Like failed
out after a year?

Speaker 4 (05:04):
Really yeah, I mean i'd imagine it's hard.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
Well, yeah, it was more than that. I was just
like depressed and chasing girls and.

Speaker 4 (05:12):
Those are conflicting things. We try to be a doctor, right, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (05:14):
So I joined the army and I was a soldier
for years, spent two years in the reserves and five
on active duty, and got out and went back to school.
And when I but I I was an army journalist.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
Oh really?

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Yeah? Okay what was that like? Then? A good place
to learn how to be a journalist because it's really
hard to.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
Fire you really, why is that.

Speaker 2 (05:39):
Because one, it's expensive to train the next guy. Okay,
you actually have to go and train.

Speaker 1 (05:44):
A soldier journalists, Yeah, okay.

Speaker 2 (05:46):
So you've got to send like basic training and then
journalism school in the army and you know whatever. Like
it was a good place to sort of experiment to
find your voice. Like, and I'm making that much more
romantic than it was. I spent most of my time
in the Army. I spent a year studying Arabic at
the Defense Language Institute, and then four in the twenty

(06:10):
fifth Infantry Division in Hawaii, writing about infantry operations in
the jungle and with the exception of a short peacekeeping
stint in Egypt, I mean, nobody's shot at me. It
was ninety fourth or ninety nine. It was a long
time ago. But I got out and I'm like, all right,
I guess I'm a journalist.

Speaker 4 (06:29):
So what is an army journalist cover? Forgive me? But like,
if you're so, you work for the army yep, and
so are you?

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Well, it depends on what you're exactly asked to do, like,
because sometimes you're a glorified pr guy, right, Sometimes you're
writing for stars and stripes, which is straight journalism. And hey,
people are getting shot, go right about it, like take
pictures on the battlefield, like transmit correspondence back, Like.

Speaker 4 (06:55):
Are they ever like, hey, we don't want that shit
out there.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
All the time. In fact, that was kind of my
Like that was I get thrown out of a lot
of places, like that's been the story of my life.
There was a story I was writing just before I
got out. So fun fact, it's free breaston plant surgery
and the army is free.

Speaker 4 (07:14):
What do you mean free?

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I mean if you're a soldier and you want breast
and plant surgery, like there are plastic surgeons who will
do that for free.

Speaker 4 (07:25):
Where did the free breast I.

Speaker 2 (07:27):
Plants come from? So you have to buy the actual implants.
But because they wanted they like, they wanted their plastic
surgeons to keep their skills up because yours, it's war.
People get parts blown off of them, So your surgeons
need to be doing surgeries. So here's a surgery that's elective,

(07:47):
but go for it, like, let's practice.

Speaker 4 (07:49):
You're still cutting in, you're still at the real surgery.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
So the scandal here was that the senior officers at
base were putting their wives on that list and bumping
and junior enlisted soldiers off the or down the list
so that their wives would get the surgery. And I
was writing about.

Speaker 1 (08:10):
That, that's a cool story, that's a great sty I
did not see that that's a great story. That's a
great story.

Speaker 2 (08:15):
And I got thrown out a triple or Army medical
center and the commanding general send a letter to my
commanding general saying, don't let this guy back on my
base unless he's shot. Wow, Like the uh, because they's
like I'm messing with their doctors and like but that, Like,
journalism is about writing about something that somebody else does

(08:37):
not want anybody to know. Everything else is public relations.
Like and that is the attitude that a good journalist
is looking at no matter where they are or they're
not a damn journalist.

Speaker 4 (08:50):
Well what is a journalist in twenty twenty four?

Speaker 2 (08:52):
Well, that's just it, Like I think they are. Like
part of it is being a natural human being who's
got two eyes, who can put them on something and
say this is real. Now that's bullshit, somebody made that up. No,
that's ai Like that's just.

Speaker 4 (09:06):
All being to discern those things.

Speaker 2 (09:08):
Yeah, I think like.

Speaker 1 (09:10):
Being a journalist involved being able to have your own
sort of bullshit meter.

Speaker 2 (09:13):
Yeah yeah, And a lot of that has to do
with establishing a professional and personal reputation for probity. Like
anybody could say they're a journalist, but if you don't
have a bunch of time and the organizational or whatever
to say, yeah, I'm a journalist, and here is my
body of work that you could check against other stuff
to go, okay, well that was right, that was right,
that was right, that was right. Okay, so you're not

(09:35):
full of shit.

Speaker 1 (09:36):
Right, Like you've got it right enough times to have
built a rapport that yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
More than a report, a record, a record, because somebody
else could come along and say, and this happens all
the time, like some scammy bullshit website that's that's existed
for six months, that was put together by a public
relations firm or somebody's political campaign that exists to fuck
with someone. Yes, add like a real journalist will see

(10:03):
that and go that's not.

Speaker 4 (10:05):
Real, right, you're not taking the bait there, Yeah you can.

Speaker 2 (10:07):
And then they will say this is not real. This
is why I say it's not real. And here's how
you know that what I am saying is much more
likely to be true than not. That is what I
think journalism is right now, like validate what is real
from what is not, because we are living in a
world of bullshit.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
Yeah, so how do you mean? It's like now, that's
probably harder than ever.

Speaker 2 (10:29):
To do, though, Yeah, it is definitely harder than ever
to do. It's why I don't fear for my job,
Like it is harder to do right now than it
ever has been. AI is gonna be a problem.

Speaker 4 (10:41):
Right, what in your eyes? What is that problem?

Speaker 2 (10:44):
It's gonna be. Well, like once upon a time, if
I had video evidence of something, I'm like, all right,
that's too expensive to fake. It could be faked. Maybe
I'll find other sources, Like and then I find another
source in it's a photograph from a different angle by
a different person whose background I can check out and

(11:04):
go like, all right, well these two things are they
don't know each other and they've both got the same thing.
I'm probably looking at it. And then fucking open AI
comes along and they can just do and on the
fly and for basically nothing, gin up an image, like
at which point I need to go and find human
sources and start making was this real? Were you there? Like?

(11:27):
What else? Did you see Is there other evidence that
you can show me?

Speaker 4 (11:31):
What do you think is going to have to happen?
When I mean, the video technology with AI is kind
of already here basically more or.

Speaker 1 (11:37):
Less, and it'll be even more and more accessible to
everyone eventually just tap table on your phone?

Speaker 4 (11:44):
How do we like verify what is real?

Speaker 2 (11:47):
So again, I think part of this is some of
it's going to be technical, some of it's going to
be just straight up Like I have a device that
can find AI in an.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
Image, right, AI I should be able to find AI, right.

Speaker 2 (12:00):
Maybe yeah, But then you've got to make sure that
the AI that you're using to find the AI itself
can be trusted. And so there's a whole chain of
things that I think have to happen. But part of
it is all is just the legwork. It's just somebody,
some schlubby dipshit who shows up and knocks on a
door or makes a phone call or until phone calls

(12:23):
can get faked.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
I mean we're there now too, right.

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Which is a real threat, like honestly, like, like the
the Georgia legislature just passed a law that outlaws the
use of AI to impersonate somebody else in medium really
so yeah, like we're gonna get We live in Georgia
and we're in a swing state and they're gonna dump

(12:49):
half a billion dollars in ads on us in the
next six months, and those ads are gonna be fucking stupid.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
It's gonna suck.

Speaker 2 (12:57):
It's the worst it's got. Like we've gone through two side.

Speaker 1 (13:00):
Oh fuck it exhausting.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
This is gonna be stupid on steroids, in part because
of the II ship, because it's gonna be super easy
to make it. Add that shows basically, anything you want
you don't have to spend a million dollars on it.
And oh, if this law hadn't passed, it would have
been like, I mean, whatever you think is the worst.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
Possible, it's gonna happen.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
And we're still gonna get like robo calls with somebody's
voice faked. That is gonna they're gonna say, vile, stupid ship.
Like the problem is we don't have the mechanisms to
chase down people who are gonna break this law.

Speaker 1 (13:36):
We don't. I mean, like I thought spam calls were illegal.
I get them all the.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
Time, all the time. I got two I was coming here.

Speaker 4 (13:42):
Yeah, like, what the hell, come on, it's it's it's insane.

Speaker 2 (13:45):
So this is my life as a journalist. It's bullshit
detection and that's And honestly, I don't think I'm ever
gonna be out of a job, like because there's too
much bullshit.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
Do you think your job has gotten more important throughout
your career in that way or personally?

Speaker 2 (13:59):
I would have said no until about three years ago. Really, yeah,
three or four years ago, like because anybody really can
be a journalist, like when you were. When you are
doing the work, you are a journalist, Like you get
better over time when you build up a you know,
a body of work. But the Internet and social media

(14:23):
to some degree was a democratizing function, or at least
it started out that way. Like I was looking forward
to a moment like that. I don't think it's ever
going to come now where there will be enough people
with enough eyes and some of them are going to
be full of shit and some won't, but you'd have
enough material where you could sift through it and get

(14:43):
it the truth right. And now I'm not so sure.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
Like in theory that makes sense, where the access to
the information should be there enough where people could just
use their thinking gaps, yeah, and figure it out. But
it's muddied a little bit, is.

Speaker 2 (14:59):
Some Some of this was getting a lot easier. It's
still getting some of the things are much much easier.
Like I don't have to go to the courthouse all
the time in order to pull a record, thank god
the UH. I can sit in my house and watch
a zoom meeting of a public conversation, like a public meeting.
I can make phone calls. I can find a phone

(15:21):
number that I could call, like because I'm not thumbing through,
I'm showing my age here, but really like I'm really
like it's I'm really like really basic things that we
take for granted, like googling somebody's name and finding a
phone number and calling it. Like things were getting easier.

Speaker 4 (15:43):
Why do you like doing this stuff?

Speaker 2 (15:46):
I'm naturally curious, uh, And honestly, I think it's just
this big philosophical question about like the arc of the
universe and history this. I think about how how fleeting
my life is. Like I've got like seven or eighty

(16:06):
years maybe more, if you know, healthcare gets better. How
old are you?

Speaker 4 (16:11):
I'm thirty six.

Speaker 2 (16:12):
There's a chance you'll live forever. You think so?

Speaker 4 (16:15):
Or am I like right past the customers?

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Well, that's it, Like we can see the line. I
think we're not there. I don't know, Maybe you.

Speaker 1 (16:24):
Or I've just passed it.

Speaker 2 (16:26):
Maybe me. I don't know, but I think we're close.

Speaker 4 (16:29):
But do we want to live forever?

Speaker 2 (16:31):
Well? I don't know. Like that's one of those things
I'm kind of looking around for. Like it's this idea
that there's all of this amazing stuff to look at
and my time is limited, and I am in a
job where I get to look at everything. I've got

(16:51):
an excuse to call anybody. I can. You know, if
I am curious, I can find an answer if there
is an answer to be found. And I do that
all day and as long as I stay curious, I
stay employed.

Speaker 4 (17:06):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (17:07):
So really it's just a it's innate to you to
want to understand I think so.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
Yeah, I think so. I think journalism should solve problems.

Speaker 4 (17:16):
You think so, I do example of that? What do
you mean by that?

Speaker 2 (17:19):
Like? All right, so I spend some time like at
the Atlanta Journal Constitution writing about crime. In fact, to
some degree, that's why I'm here. Yeah, And every time
I would show up where somebody got shot and killed,
and I'd be I'd be the guy who had to
knock on the damn door of the mother daughter husband,

(17:40):
knock knock. Hi, I'm George g D. I'm from the AJAC. Uh.
I understand that your your wife got just got killed
by a next murderer. And I would never ask this,
but like, so tell me how you feel? Sure like
it is the shittiest possible moment in the person.

Speaker 4 (18:00):
How do you handle that kind of situation?

Speaker 2 (18:02):
I mean, are you just absolute empathy, a sort of
an apologetic like like.

Speaker 1 (18:08):
You know this sucks, acknowledging that this is intrusive.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
And not pushing it like not if they're no, I'm no.
I don't ever want to be. There's there's a degree
to which I can't enter somebody's life like that. And
the problem was when I was at the AJAC, I
was entering a lot of people's lives like that, and
every time I did, I'm like, what the fuck am
I doing here? I Am about to write another story

(18:34):
where there's another black kid's face, like in like a
mugshot or like this guy is dead now picture at
am I actually solving any of the problems here? Am
I reducing the crime? Right? Am I bringing solace to Sometimes? Yes?
Mostly no? And I'm like, what this is bullshit? Like

(18:55):
I need to be fucking right. If I'm gonna do
anything around this stuff, I need to be solving the
fucking problems I'm writing about or else the people that
I am writing about will look at me like the enemy.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
Right, You're just talking about it, and they do.

Speaker 2 (19:08):
Like you go into like poor neighborhoods in Atlanta, You're
ask them what they think about the fucking media, like, oh,
the guys that show up when somebody got shot, right,
like that's it and that look, no, it's it's predatory.
I profit from your pain.

Speaker 1 (19:25):
I mean, it's easy to break it down that way.
And so you felt that you.

Speaker 2 (19:29):
And I quit. I straight up quit. I quit. I
thought I was done. Yeah, I went. I quit the
aj best job ever had until this one. I quit
the AJAC in two thousand and eight. Uh, to go
get an MBA two thousand and eight. Yeah, to get
an MBA well like master of Timing and I but

(19:55):
I was out. I was out for a while and
did some other marketing crap and whatever, and it just
didn't feel the same and also wasn't good at it.
But I don't know, like you know, there's a I
don't have that mercenary. I have an MBA and I look,
I've got hustle all day long, but I'm not I

(20:15):
can't make myself go like I am doing this specifically
because it will make me a lot of money.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Like because that's how you have to think. Really, you
have to really be just married to it that way.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
And I'm just I'm not wired that way. I can manage,
but I'm not. I'm not a business guy. So I
worked on homelessness in Atlanta for a while and worked
for the downtown business District on like sort of social problems, homelessness,
mental illness. Did that for a few years, made really
good political contacts, I might add, and I served on

(20:45):
my Pine Lake City Council when I wasn't doing that
population seven hundred and eighty not counting geese, and it
was a political education. So when I left a job,
or or the job left me in I went back
to writing because I knew I could make money. And
one thing leads to another, and I built a big audience,

(21:07):
so more than just one thing leads to another. It
was diligent ground level, neighborhood level individual reporting. That's why
I ended up covering the young Thug trial. So I
was like ed protests. It was in the street in
twenty twenty, and I'm watching everything go.

Speaker 1 (21:27):
Now.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
I was there when the Wendy's burned down. Oh wow, Yeah,
watched the guys run out. Got my ass kicked over
there too, I might hear you. Yeah, what happened. So
this is the downside to you, like, gotta go look
at put my two eyes on it.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
Well, so I'm I'm at home and it's like a
Saturday night and somebody on Twitter hits me and says,
there are guys with guns over at the Wendy's and
they're not letting anybody white drive by. And I'm like,
prove it. Yeah, that's bullshit. I don't believe you. That
sounds like some white supremacist bullshit that's online. I'm gonna

(22:09):
go look, and I'm black, so surely my Albert Brooks
sounding ass will be just fine. So I go over
there and there are a bunch of guys with you know,
air fifteens and handguns and all the rest. And yes, indeed,
they were not letting white people go by because there
are a bunch of like white supremacist proadboy assholes that

(22:30):
had been buzzing in and so they posted up. Turns
out they were a street gang and didn't like the
fact that I was a news reporter and had a
cell phone with a camera on it, and told me
to give them my cell phone and I did not,
because fuck them, I don't give my cell phone anybody.

(22:51):
And they said they're gonna shoot me, and I'm like,
I don't believe you.

Speaker 1 (22:55):
Wow, look it's bold, it was, and you're like, we
hope so stupid, you know, yeah, so stood. I can
see myself hear me.

Speaker 2 (23:03):
Don't fucking do that. Don't don't fucking do that.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, but you said that, but I did and you didn't. Start.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Dude starts counting down to from ten to like saying
I'm gonna shoot you when I get to zero.

Speaker 1 (23:16):
And at five he was just counting it down, had
his hand on his.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Pistol ready to pull, and I'm like at five, I'm like,
you know what, I think, I'll just I'll leave, good luck.
I walk away and the guy runs around front pops
me in the face and I'm like, I used to box.
I don't know what the fuck is wrong with me,
because like I didn't do anything. I mean, he was
small one, yeah, any and nothing happens in him. But
like this little chiron at the bottom of the screen

(23:39):
starts going, George, you are under attack, so wock somebody
else hits me, George, put your hands off. And so
I turned around and got my hands up on backing up,
and I'm like surrounded by like fifty guys with gun
like fuck him up.

Speaker 1 (23:54):
Dude, And I'm like, fuck, So what do you do now?

Speaker 2 (23:57):
Well, I backed up into the light into like there's
a there's a gas station nearby, and I got into
the light, knew I was on camera, knew I was
fine at that point, and got into my car and
drove away, went to Grady. Yeah that's the downside of
on the ground putting your eyes on it. But here's

(24:19):
the thing, So, like I'm writing about all of this stuff,
but as it's happening. I don't know if you remember.
In twenty twenty, but the crime rate, the violent crime
rate started to skyrocket fastest of any major city in
the United States. Homicide rate went up sixty percent in
a year. It's never Whilhy that you think, Well, that

(24:40):
is what I wanted to figure out. I am curious.
This should not be happening. I don't understand any of this.
But I've written about crime before, so I'm going to
write about it from this perspective. Why is this shit happening?
And I'm going to explain this to a bunch of
scared ass politicians who are gonna want turn this into

(25:01):
a police state, like this is why homicides have been rising,
this is why they rose this fast. Here, these are
the factors, these are the specific cases, this is what's
going on. Fannie Willis got elected and in her first
couple of months she said it's gangs, Like they're like

(25:22):
eighty percent of the violent crime in Atlanta's gangs. And
I'm like, I don't believe you, right, I don't. It's
exactly the sort of bullshit that a politician would.

Speaker 4 (25:34):
Say, right, because you could play something right.

Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah. So I'm like, all right, I'm gonna go look
and I start pulling indictments and you know, homicide cases,
whatever it could get my hands on, and it becomes
really evident, really fast that a street gang called YSL
was gonna get fucking rolled up, like because like YSL

(25:56):
keeps showing up in all of these other places, including
a big indictment of the YFN Street gang that came
down in twenty twenty two. And then I start looking
at what they're doing and like what young Thug is doing,
and I'm like, oh, well that's suspicious, that's weird, and
oh this thing and oh well that's oh look at

(26:17):
that somebody got killed that's close to him and what
is this? You know? So I started writing like, oh yeah,
by the way, like why is he was going to
get fucking rolled up? And young Thug's probably going to
get arrested, and there's this whole like what what are
you talking about? Like how are you? And then young
Thug got arrested and.

Speaker 4 (26:36):
Wise hell got rolled up and you were surprised and
I wasn't surprised.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
But all of a sudden, everybody's looking at me, like
you the police, and I'm like no.

Speaker 1 (26:43):
No, no, no, I'm just just looking at information here.

Speaker 2 (26:46):
This shit would have been obvious to anybody who was
looking through those those documents. It's just somebody had to
go do it, like and so that's kind of my shtick,
Like I spent a lot of time looking at court
records and talking to people or have like looking at
these this idea like why was violent crime right? Because
it has cratered since?

Speaker 4 (27:08):
So what was it?

Speaker 2 (27:09):
So gangs some of it? Not eighty percent? Okay, I
think forty is probably a big number, like a lot,
but it's not eighty. It's not eighty. It was never eighty.
What it is is one everybody lost their fucking mind.
And I know that's sort of really basic, but I
mean the diagnosed rate of anxiety and depression rose by

(27:33):
twenty five percent.

Speaker 4 (27:35):
Okay, well that's a factor for sure, that's a factor.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
The Uh, we live in a state that has opened
Carrie like no concealed Carrie, no permit, all of that.
We also live in a state that kept the clubs
open when a bunch of other states around us closed them.
And so what ended up happening is folks from New
York and Chicago and Philly were coming down for fun

(28:01):
time in Atlanta, like literally, like there were like there'd
be like an Atlanta night in Philly and like flights
and they'd come in and they'd go party here. Only
like a turf war started to develop downtown around like
illicit drug sales and women like you know, sex trafficking

(28:23):
and those so normally, downtown Atlanta is one of the
safer zones in the city. Like its homicide raid increased
like four hundred percent. Like people were getting shot as
they were coming out of clubs, Like that was a.

Speaker 1 (28:38):
Big partisan clashing going on of yeah outsiders.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Maybe, Yeah, some of it was. Like there was this
thing where Chicago street gangs were gang members were coming
into Atlanta, but it wasn't gang beef per se. They
were people who belonged to a gang who were having
a beef, but it's not.

Speaker 4 (28:54):
The same thing from a different place.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
Yeah, this was just interpersonal bullshit by people who are
easy to get a gun, really hard to get mental
health treatment, Like big mental health problem going on, a
lot of stressors related to the pandemic itself. People were
losing their housing left and right because they were losing

(29:16):
their jobs, and when people are desperate, desperate things happen.
Like a lot of those homicides were domestic violence shootings.
Some of them were over the stupidest shit in the world,
Like this guy, you shot a subway Uh, you know,

(29:37):
sandwich maker, you'd like, I mean too much mayonnaise on
the Sandwid's just.

Speaker 4 (29:44):
Lost their mind because they just have had it.

Speaker 2 (29:46):
With the world. The other thing is that the jails
became so crowded that it became hard to actually hold
on to people. And they're still overcrowded. And the jail
is a murder factory right.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Now, mean being murdered in jail.

Speaker 2 (30:01):
So there were murders in jail. They were spitting out murderers,
and people were getting killed in jail one way or another.
They were dying, Like the death rate in the jails
increased fivefold during the pandemic prisons. Same thing. So I
mean a lot of factors, Like it's not just one thing, it's.

Speaker 4 (30:21):
About anything, right right.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
Part of it was the cops, like start, like the
relationship between the police and the public broke down in
twenty twenty, and it's only just now starting to build
back up, Like street protests are going on, the cops
are pissy about it. Then there's the Rayshard Brooks murder
shooting killing Raychhard Brooks was killed by two cops at

(30:49):
the Wendy's And when those cops were fired and charged,
like the other cops essentially went on strike. There's a
blue flu straight up, We're not responding to calls unless
there's an act of violence happening right now. We're not
going to go police. Wow. Like and people saw that
shit and we're like.

Speaker 4 (31:10):
Wow, great tissues.

Speaker 2 (31:11):
Right Yeah. So I'm like, this is the context for
me looking at the YSL stuff. I'm like, all right,
Fannie Willis is ready to lay all of this shit
on you. What does that look like? And so I
dove in and here we are two years later.

Speaker 4 (31:33):
What are the odds that young thug doesn't go to prison?

Speaker 2 (31:36):
Doesn't go to prison? One and four?

Speaker 4 (31:39):
One and four you think, okay, yeah, and.

Speaker 2 (31:42):
I'll tell I'll tell you why it's because that's those
are the odds. I think there's a mistrial.

Speaker 4 (31:46):
But don't they just go right back?

Speaker 2 (31:48):
Yeah, if this fucking mistrials, you can't tell me they're
going to try to charge them again. If it miss trials,
I mean, the very least still have bail, because there's
no fucking way they could keep him in, right. Yeah,
I think there's a one in chance of a mistrial.
I don't I think if there is no mistrial, like
they caught him at his house with a switch and
you know enough promethes ine syrup to staff a CVS

(32:10):
Like there's he's he goes to jail for that. I think, Okay,
the rest of it is a crapshoot. I don't know.
They have to prove that he rented a car intending
for the person to use it in a drive by,
and on some really basic level. I have been asking
myself this question this whole time, is why would you

(32:31):
be stupid enough to rent a car that you knew
would be used in a drive by? You steal a
fucking car if you're going to do a drive by
so that it doesn't trace back to you. Now, granted,
like the folks who were doing this weren't smart. We
prosecute the gangsters where we can catch like so at

(32:53):
the drive by where like one of the rivals of
YSL Donovan Thomas was killed in twenty fifteen, car drives
by barber shop comes out very godfather like kills the
guy drives off. One of them had a cell phone
in his pocket. Another of them, little Duke, was in

(33:13):
jail like in Ryce Street like on unrelated stuff. He
had just been picked up a week or so before.
Called the dude in the car on the cell phone
from a jail phone that was recorded. Wow, cell phone,

(33:35):
pull the records, look at the towers that it was
pinging off, and oh shit, that cell phone was at
the scene at the time of the murder. Like that's
fucking it. Like that's the end of that guy.

Speaker 1 (33:48):
Like that's yeah, that's pretty uh cut and dry, and
I think yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
And then it's just a matter of can the prosecution
tie that to the other people in the car and
to the other people in the case, Like that's that's it.
Like so I'm sure they've got somebody dead to fucking rights. Yeah, yeah,
Like the question is how many other people do they
actually loop in?

Speaker 4 (34:08):
How much longer do you think it's going to take
for there to be a verdict.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
Here unless they like so the judge looks like he's
trying to speed things up. I don't think he's doing
a good job.

Speaker 1 (34:20):
I don't when yeah, I.

Speaker 2 (34:22):
Think it goes another year.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
They have one hundred and fifty witnesses to go, they'
and that's after knocking a bunch of them off. They
have one hundred and fifty witnesses to go. They're averaging
two a week, three maybe that's a year. They haven't
even gotten to the good ones.

Speaker 1 (34:41):
What if they just spent all that time and money
in trying to do something at else with it, Like
if they cared so much about this issue.

Speaker 2 (34:50):
Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking about what three million dollars
would have done to Cleveland Avenue if you put it
in the right places. Cleveland Avenue needs a lot of help.
Cleveland Avenue is the part of Atlanta that is gentrifying.

Speaker 4 (35:00):
Yet it's not a funk.

Speaker 2 (35:02):
It's in a funk like and so folks who are
living there because they can't find anywhere else. Like it
was tremendously violent during the during the pandemic, it is,
it's calmed down now because everybody's calmed down. Terrible relationship
with the police, big social problems, and you got to
work at that, Like you need a carpet bombit with

(35:23):
social workers and jobs, like that's how you fix that. Eddie.
One of those kids who got caught up in this shit.
I say kids, I mean like some of them were
sixteen when they were first charged with a murder. In
this case, you'd given them a job that had a future,
they would never have fucking gotten involved with any other shit. Yeah.
Of course one of them was just a kid who

(35:45):
was getting picked on for his weight in school, and like,
you know what, that leads to another. He meets young
thug and was playing at this Young Thug and YSL
were sponsoring a pop order football team called the Cleveland
Avenue forty nine ers. Kid gets involved, meets young thug.
Suddenly he's bad bris. The rapper bad bris. He can't wrap,

(36:10):
but he's got a video.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
Yeah, And meanwhile he's.

Speaker 2 (36:14):
Knocking over like an armed robbery here, you know, carjacking
over there. And when they tried to arrest him, he
shot the cop that was trying to arrest him six times,
including one in the head. The cop survived. While in jail,
he's been fighting with guards and whoever else. Like he
needs a lot of therapy, but he needed it five years.

Speaker 1 (36:38):
Ago, right, what's taking so long?

Speaker 2 (36:46):
Part of it is, I think Fannie Willis is distracted
by other cases, okay, like the Trump case. Part of
it is it's such a giant, sprawling mess of case
with twenty eight defendants that it come to the courts
up eight ways to Sunday, and they didn't really unscrew

(37:08):
themselves for a solid year. Part of it is because
the prosecutor who had been following this stuff, had been
building this case for seven years quit or was fired
or something. I don't exactly know. All I know is
that Don Geary was the subject matter expert on this

(37:29):
reco case, and Don Geary four months in or so
quit to go to Gwinnett the rumor and please, like
I have a journalist of traffics and truth, so please
understand that what I am telling you is not something
I could validate by a source that I could put
on the record. But I feel comfortable enough saying that

(37:51):
it's courthouse chatter that Fannie Willis didn't want like old
white guy prosecuting the case in front of what would
presumably be a majority black jury with a bunch of
black defendants in an emotionally charged, like complicated, like music

(38:12):
stuff like case that she thought he wouldn't be able
to get the conviction across. And he's like, yeah, but
I know this fucking case better than anybody, Like you're
gonna replace me with somebody else's gonna start from scratch, Okay,
well good luck, buy and quit, Like so I have heard.

Speaker 4 (38:36):
I have that makes making sense.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
So I've asked him to tell me and he has
been unwilling. The person who took over the case has
been like this whole process has just been delayed and slow,
and I think part of it is because the the
prosecutor has been playing games with disclosure. When you are
putting somebody on try and you're the prosecutor, you are

(39:01):
obligated to give them all of the information that you're
going to use in the case before the trial starts.
And that's not really happened. Like they've been dribbling this
stuff in small amounts and then like two terabytes of garbage.

Speaker 4 (39:17):
Like it's in there, I promise, Like it as a game.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Yeah, it's a game, Like they've been playing games with
discovery and it's just slowed everything down because the lawyers
are like, look, we need time to look through this
pile of garbage you just handed me for the stuff
you're actually going to use in the case. Oh, by
the way, we have four hundred witnesses. Excuse me, No,
we have four hundred witnesses, So we have to qualify

(39:43):
four hundred witnesses, like where a quarter of them are cops,
so they all have to you have to go through
a whole series of hearings to figure out who's an
expert on why and all the rest of this, and
then jury selection took eight months, which is the longest
it's ever taken for anything ever the school cheating scandal,

(40:04):
like where they recode teachers in Atlanta, like Jerry, selection
was four months. Like eight months, they went through two
thousand jurors to seat twelve people and four alternates. A
lot of this it puts pressure on a defendant to
take a deal no matter what, because all this time

(40:25):
you're sitting in Rice Street like Stabby Stabby. Yeah, there's
a stabbing every day at Rye Street. There are three
thousand inmates. They're about fifteen.

Speaker 4 (40:35):
Hundred now because they is that where Young Thug is.

Speaker 2 (40:38):
No, he's actually in Cobb County, but the rest of
his crew is in Rice Street. And that's part of
the reason why. Like of the twenty eight, like ten
of them took deals just off the spot. Get me
a fuck out of.

Speaker 1 (40:53):
This, yeah, like what you're doing here?

Speaker 2 (40:55):
Yeah, no jail time, all probation, give me the deal done. Yeah,
ten years, I'll take the ten years.

Speaker 1 (41:01):
Young Thug is a rapper. YSL is his gang. I
guess you could say that, right, So that's.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
Like that is what the prosecution says, and honestly, like
as I look at the evidence, Yeah, that's fair. Okay.
So there is a street gang on Cleveland Avenue called YSL,
and folks who are on trial have been affiliated with
that gang at one point or another, Like that's real.
The question is whether or not they were breaking laws

(41:31):
in ways that make them vulnerable to the gang statute
and the reco case. It's not illegal to be in
a gang. It is not illegal to be in a
street gang. Okay.

Speaker 1 (41:43):
What is what is illegal?

Speaker 2 (41:45):
If your street gang is committing crimes as a gang
and you're all sticking together in order to defend each
other legally, then it's illegal.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
I see.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
Like the difference between a street gang and a hockey
team is whether or not you get in a fight on.

Speaker 5 (42:01):
The on the ice, ye, like, like you take the
fucking two minute time out when you're done, and you're
not hitting him in the parking lot after the game.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
Like that's like it's really that simple, Like you're as
long as you're not. Like the questions whether or not
they committed crimes and whether or not those crimes fit
under like the gang statute that says, if you commit
this crime, you're an illegal gang member who goes to
jail for five years.

Speaker 1 (42:31):
Do you feel like the prosecution is more about making
an example out of this.

Speaker 2 (42:35):
I think that's part of it. I don't think that's
all of it. But I sincerely believe that Fannie Willis
sincerely believed that taking YSL and YFN. So there was
a gang war going on that started in twenty fifteen,
fifty people got shot, and there are a bunch of
people who got murdered. She believed that, like taking those

(42:59):
two gangs off the street was going to reduce the
homicide rate. And I think she was right.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
Really, see it was that big of a chuck, you think.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
So it's complicated, but like remember a bunch of different factors. Yeah,
and this might be a coincidence. But like the week
that YSL was arrested, Young Thug was arrested, like the
like that's the inflection point in the chart, The running
three hundred and sixty five day murder total started to
fall that week. Now, they weren't out there fucking killing everybody,

(43:30):
they really weren't, but all the other gangs saw young
thug VERSACI contract Saturday Night Live appearance like Grammy million
Dollar House, young thug gets arrested. Oh shit, they're coming.
And I think that that had a chilling effect on

(43:51):
the willingness of like legitimate street gang members to commit
crimes in Fulton County. Homicide rate's been falling everywhere in
Metro Atlanta for years except to Cab County because the
Cab County is uniquely fucked up. And hear me when

(44:13):
I say this, because I'm a Black Lives Matter marching
police brutality reducing like criminal Justice Reform guide. The city
of Atlanta has about fifteen hundred cops.

Speaker 4 (44:26):
Is that a lot? Is that?

Speaker 2 (44:27):
I don't know, it's about it's for the size of
a city. It's about average, maybe a little on the
high side, but not a lot. The Cab County has
about the same population that it polices because there's little
cities inside. They have six hundred oh no, five hundred
and thirty five. Now it is less. Yeah, it's it's
so much less that I can't find other counties of

(44:49):
a similar size that have fewer than a thousand.

Speaker 4 (44:51):
So you're not saying that there shouldn't be less policing.

Speaker 2 (44:54):
Se No, what I think is going on is that
like some of the gangsters in Atlanta realized that it
was easier to fucking work into cab and so they.

Speaker 1 (45:03):
Do, Yeah, less ways to get in trouble.

Speaker 2 (45:05):
Yeah, it's not that, And it's not like the cops
aren't busting people, but they're only the resources are only
so great. You know. It's funny like drug Rich is
a gang. It's in my neighborhood. It's like sort of
South Hairston Memorial Drive into Cab.

Speaker 6 (45:21):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (45:22):
They're the ones that were knocking over the houses of
celebrities in North Fulton, like Mariah Carey's house. What they do, Oh,
they it's home invasions like or just a straight up burglary,
like she's gone, we're gonna steal some shit. They got
busted by Fulton, Like they're charged by Fulton. Wow, they

(45:43):
weren't charged by Decab. The cab just rolled up a
bunch of people. They just pulled in a thirty person
rico that I've got to go dig into. Like they're
getting there, but they just don't have the manpower. It's
one of it's a rare exception to this general rule
of over policing, like they have a very acute, very
specific problem.

Speaker 1 (46:03):
I see, Yeah, this sample is unique in that way.

Speaker 2 (46:07):
And that's the value of like doing the kind of
journalism that I've been trying to do. It's not like
when you turn on the evening news and you're looking
at crime. Shit, it's going to be this person got shot.

Speaker 1 (46:18):
Yeah, it's always just in your face and then there's
no follow up, the context.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
And no context. And I am anti that.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
What problem as a journalist are you trying to solve
by covering young thugs case?

Speaker 2 (46:32):
So part of it is just this like there was
this giant, this narrative about the black community, about rap
about crime in Atlanta that all sort of converges on
that case. And what I wanted to tell people was,
all right, here is how much of what we talk
about when we talk about gang crime that is real

(46:54):
and how much is not. So that when your politicians
are telling you they want to spend a billion dollars
to build a new jail, you have enough information that
can make that evaluate that appropriately. Or if they're telling
you that they need to spend oh sixty million dollars
on a police training facility, whether or not that's bullshit.

(47:15):
You know, whether or not there's a better way to
spend that money that happens, I think there is.

Speaker 4 (47:23):
It's a billion dollars.

Speaker 2 (47:24):
So yeah, the jail's an interesting problem, Like, but I
don't think that rebuilding the jail solves it. They have
a staffing problem. It's like just like all police departments.

Speaker 1 (47:33):
Right now, sounds like a shitty job.

Speaker 2 (47:34):
Though, well that's why they have a staffing problem.

Speaker 4 (47:37):
Would you want to not being.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Like the odds of being stabbed as a as a
sheriff's deputy that jail are higher than they might be otherwise,
and they're paying fifty grand, and you take your chances.
I admire people who are willing to do this work
if they're doing it for if they're doing it for
the right reasons, which is what like, there's a rehabilitative

(48:00):
to all of this, that need that good cops are
looking for. Like there are people who get swallowed up
by the criminal justice system that like, with the right help,
you know, the right word, can pull out of that
and have lives that are productive and meaningfully.

Speaker 4 (48:18):
Form their lives. And in what in whatever way that is.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
Like I mean and on some really basic level, the
system needs to work, and like or else, we do
not live in a state of justice. And if you're
about that, you know you don't care about the cost,
You're not. I didn't it can become a journalist for
the money, and I don't think cops do either, clearly,
Like there's a you know, I can.

Speaker 4 (48:43):
But if they got paid more, do you think that
they get smarter people?

Speaker 2 (48:46):
Maybe by I don't think that's it. It's just see,
it's more than money. Money matters, and I think we
are at a point where money is going well.

Speaker 1 (48:53):
Doctors got paid shit, then would there be an appeal
to go to school for ten years?

Speaker 2 (48:58):
Doctors get paid ship in places like you know, England
relative to the United States, Like you go to a
place with socialized medicine, and doctors aren't making five hundred
thousand or three hundred thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 4 (49:10):
It's it really more of a bipartuct of like how
we have.

Speaker 1 (49:12):
The health and assurance yeah set up over here.

Speaker 2 (49:16):
Really this like I think, you know, I think that
policing is in a state of crisis right now. I
think there are a lot of folks who within like
a lot of police officers who are wrestling with what
am I doing here? Like this used to be much
more respected than it was.

Speaker 1 (49:33):
When was it more respected? I mean, like I guess
when was it doing well?

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I mean, I suppose, like you can look at the
I think the decline began in the you know, mid
two thousands. And when I'm talking about respect, I mean, like,
I don't mean like, you know, here's a free ice
cream cone. I mean this sort of social idea that
police officers were helpful and useful to communities in crisis. There's, like,

(50:01):
you know, there's been a lot of money spent on
policing and not nearly enough on the social issues that
reduce crime in the first place. I think that society
is coming to that realization, but it's in fits and spurts.
And I think policing as a as a profession, I
think police professionals are really doing all right. How do
I fit into this? Like, how do I make this work?

(50:24):
Particularly in the places where I want to police? Yeah,
where like I mean you talk to an Atlanta street cop,
they are there because they want to do good for
the community that they're in. And I'm going to get
a bunch of like you know, anarchists are pissed at
me for saying that, Like, I'm not that like abolition

(50:44):
is the only correct thing that we should be striving
toward a society that requires fewer police and preferably as none.
And I don't subscribe to that view. I don't think
we can realistically get there.

Speaker 4 (50:58):
And why is that?

Speaker 2 (50:59):
You think?

Speaker 4 (50:59):
Does that is a human thing? I think it's a
product doing bounds to be put within.

Speaker 2 (51:05):
It's just we live in this really unequal society. Okay,
you know what, Like this is one of the big things. Like,
as I was looking at why violent crime spiked here,
there is a massive correlation between like concentrated poverty and
inequality and the speed with which their violent crime rate increased.

(51:29):
You look at some neighborhoods, like in Philly where you've
got census tracts that are seventy percent poor, which is
off the fucking chain. That's nuts, Like massive explosion violence
there of the kind that distorted the politics of Philadelphia.
East Saint Louis, massive inequality, New Orleans massive inequality. Jackson

(51:54):
fucking Mississippi, and I am heading to Jackson, Mississippi, massive inequality,
highest murder rate of any city over one hundred thousand
in the United States.

Speaker 4 (52:06):
Damn.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Like the murder rate here got to like thirty six
per hundred thousand, which is very high. Okay, it's like
over one hundred jeez in Jackson's.

Speaker 4 (52:18):
Corporation, is is it?

Speaker 6 (52:19):
Like?

Speaker 2 (52:20):
I mean, it's all of those factors that I was
talking about multiplied by a bunch of people who don't
have resources. Like, look, if you and I, for whatever reason,
had beef and it was getting out of hand, you
have options, and so you can kind of geat. You
can leave. You could get into a car that you
own and drive away. You can call an uber because

(52:40):
you've got a cell phone that has money attached to it,
and you could call a lawyer, call a shrink, call
call your wife. Like, but when you're really impoverished, Yeah,
Like your menu of options you're stuck is smaller, and
so suddenly if it's a coin flip between shooting some
and running away as opposed to all of these other things,

(53:03):
people who are have impulse control problems that are otherwise
they'll make the wrong choice.

Speaker 4 (53:09):
Like, it's also kind of a survival instinct a little bit.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
A little bit, especially if you feel threatened. But it's
this like like all of these multiple factors all together,
and then because rich people get into arguments too, we
don't shoot each other in general because we have all
of these other options and something to.

Speaker 1 (53:28):
Lose, right, if you have nothing to lose, that's kind
of when you could do anything.

Speaker 4 (53:35):
Because what's the matter.

Speaker 2 (53:39):
With the young thug? Stuff like that really is a
policy thing for me, Like it's this is about seeing
criminal justice policy improve so that you have fewer cases
like that coming through the courts, so that when cases
like that do come there is an understanding in the
public of what they should expect. That you get better juries,

(54:01):
maybe that you get better prosecutors, and maybe spend a
little less money on this stuff.

Speaker 4 (54:08):
Yeah, it's a lot of money.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
I mean, I'm thinking about, like, if you're going to
go through this whole prosecution, and I've been saying this constantly.
You go through this whole two years of prosecution where
you're sped in ten thousand dollars a day in order
to prosecute or something crazy like that, but you don't
change the material conditions on Cleveland Avenue where YSL was based.

(54:30):
Five years from now, you've got to be back in
court with another set of guys.

Speaker 4 (54:33):
You're not really solving a problem.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
You're just now you're stuck in this thing that you
started and you're just on finishing that.

Speaker 2 (54:40):
But it takes all of the reporting to show like,
look like you're doing all of this and that's great,
but if you don't do this too, you are not
solving the problem.

Speaker 1 (54:51):
So for you, is the Young thug ysl case about
highlighting those things?

Speaker 2 (54:57):
Yes, and so it didn't just happen for now. Yeah,
that's it. I mean, it is about highlighting all of
the other aspects of the criminal justice system. And I
might add like music.

Speaker 1 (55:07):
Stuff, which is a very weird part of it, right, yeah,
very like because all those songs are bangers too.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
As I'm starting to be a fan, like I bearn
in mind, like I'm fifty one years old. Like if
it was post Wu Tang Clan, I needed a shirpa, right.

Speaker 1 (55:25):
I know, you need to be brought up to speed.

Speaker 2 (55:28):
Like this is not outcast? What is this stuff? Yeah?
Like so now I'm I kinda Yeah, my co host
is a much better has a much rich, deep understanding
of rap and trap and music in general. Yeah, Like
Christina Lee was a Godsend and my producer Tommy Andres.
When he connected the two of us, that was. That

(55:50):
was the peanut, butter and chocolate coming together. The we
covered each other's bases like and it was some of
the best reporting I've ever done. That's amazing. There is
a connection. Let me tell you this, Like if people
don't want to fucking hear this, there is a connection
and it is real between those street gang life in
Atlanta and the music scene. That cannot be ignored.

Speaker 4 (56:12):
What's the connection?

Speaker 2 (56:13):
So street gangs are using connections to music studios and
labels as a recruiting tool, like hey, I should make
up a name like Fast Freddy or whatever, Like he's
got a street gang ABC whatever, and he's famous and

(56:34):
the street gang is affiliated with him, and he's affiliated
with them, and he's named checking them in the music
and that gang. When you're trying to appeal to thirteen
and fourteen and fifteen year olds like that gang stuff,
when it's connected to the music stuff becomes really attractive.
Like if you're a thirteen year old, you've got mediocre

(56:54):
grades and you don't know whethery're not going to be
able to get out of the hood and You're like,
you don't see outs for yourself. Poverty, concentrated poverty. Some
guy who theoretically could connect you to a producer who
could get you distributed and then get you a contract

(57:16):
for one hundred grand in a chain looks like an out.

Speaker 1 (57:20):
I mean it is an out right, yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:23):
And it is. It is an out for enough people
for everybody else to sort of play along. But in
the meanwhile, you get thirteen year olds getting murdered at
Atlantic Station. The Atlantic Station shooting from a couple of
years ago, you remember with the kids, Yeah, rap shit
was it? Yeah, there's a rapper named Ola Brunt and

(57:44):
he's getting out of jail prison in like a couple
of months. His brother's Ola Cam who was assigned rapper
who was one of the ones who got killed. And
it's because ops from a different gay ran into each
other at the mall, got pushed out onto the into
the bridge where our shootout took place. Like it was

(58:08):
Internet driven Instagram beef bullshit.

Speaker 1 (58:13):
Yeah, like but it was over rep stuff.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Or it's connected, Like, it's not an accident that this
guy has a fucking late like is a label contract?
And I am asking the question, at what point do
the labels begin to to a creue liability for some
of this, Like the labels are in turn recruiting what

(58:39):
they believe are authentic and legitimate gangsters street guys, like
they're legit. They're looking for legit street guys.

Speaker 4 (58:48):
Do they really think that they really are? Because not
all of them are. Some of them are.

Speaker 2 (58:52):
So no, some of them are, some of them are not.

Speaker 1 (58:54):
We just assumed, like we're not growing up, that half
of them were lying, right.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
So we like, I mean, the way they'll say it
is that they're all lying, And what I'm saying is
they're not all lying. There are enough of them that
are not lying for it to be fairly obvious that
there is a pattern year because they know that they can,
Like there's a formula like insert street wrapper here, wrap

(59:19):
x amount of marketing around this guy in this exact way,
and there is a thirty percent chance that he will
pay off, not one hundred. Everybody doesn't blow up. It's
like the venture capital formula, like you invest in ten
different companies, five of them die, and you get one

(59:40):
that blows up and it pays for everything else. So
they're doing that, like get a contract for fifty grand
like there used to be like big five hundred thousand
dollars contracts. Now they're giving that like one hundred thousand
dollars contracts knowing that some of them are going to
blow up, knowing that some of them are going to
get killed, which increases the value of their musical portfolio.

Speaker 4 (01:00:06):
That's an interesting point.

Speaker 2 (01:00:07):
Which in a weird way incentivizes them to recruit folks
who are gonna crash out one way or another. And
that's something I'm still reporting through That might be my
last gasp. I've been in a gathering string on this
for about two years now. There are including some that
are operating in Atlanta, that have made a business model

(01:00:31):
to some degree of this, and folks in the industry
understand who they are. And if I sound like I'm
being cagy, it's because I absolutely need my ducks in
a row before I start laying down the names.

Speaker 4 (01:00:45):
That makes sense to me.

Speaker 2 (01:00:46):
Like when you look at the number of murdered rappers
on some labels, and there are a few everywhere, and
then you get a few labels where it's like this
long list, then you've got to start wondering. And there's
a whole insurance element to this that's interesting that I
just can't seem to get at key Man insurance, Like
it is customary for a music label to take out
an insurance policy on uh an artist. And you know,

(01:01:13):
if you've got one hundred artists and you think that
one of them's going to get killed and the payoffs
one thousand and one for the cost, it starts to
become a profitable idea to sign as many drill rappers
that are in the street as you can.

Speaker 1 (01:01:31):
What's the other side of this though, where if you
were impoverished, you grew up in this community and you
came out of this and this is you're rapping about
the experiences that you know or maybe all that you
know and have seen, and you grow out of that
into this music artist and you're rapping about those things.

(01:01:55):
Isn't that sort of a like the see that's the
other side of this, right, because that's a positive thing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:01):
It's positive. It's also real, Like I am not a
person who wants to take away somebody's art or somebody's career.

Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
So where do you think that where is the line
to you or like, where does it get weird?

Speaker 2 (01:02:13):
I think it's I think part of it is about incentives,
Like is the label sitting there going, uh, we really
need you to write more about killing people, or we
really need you to go and like like go ahead
and amplify this beef. Yeah, I know you're you're like,
I'm increasing the chances that somebody's gonna shoot you, but
you want this record deal, right, Like, I think that's

(01:02:36):
where you start. That's where one like one of the
big lines.

Speaker 1 (01:02:39):
Is like I listened to all of Young Thugs music
and I'll get out of the shower and I'm in
the mirror like like, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:02:45):
Listen to the song. I'm not gonna ever kill anybody
because I've heard that nobody is.

Speaker 2 (01:02:50):
Nobody's fucking killing anybody because they fucking heard a song.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
But there's a direct correlation to the community that's close
to them. Is that that's really what you're saying, right.

Speaker 2 (01:02:57):
Yeah, it has nothing to do necessarily with inspiring people
to go murder like right, because I'm like there's a
whole like the elegant like that, yes, like like the.

Speaker 1 (01:03:09):
Medium, I think that's not true, but yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
No, I don't think that's it at all. It's more
like this idea that you're looking for folks who are
like for real, like involved in criminal activity that likely
results in violence, like and saying that's the person that
I want to amplify because I think I can profit
from that. Now, I was this whole thing where like,
as a journalist, I have an antipathy toward like trying

(01:03:37):
to write about terrible things because I don't want to
be profiting from the misery of others. What the fuck
do you do with a music label that is literally
chasing after people like in order to profit from the
fucking misery that they may be creating in a community, Like,
that's the worst fucking thing in the world to me.

(01:03:59):
And at some point, and I think we may have
the case here in Atlanta soon, at some point some
murder victims family, it's got to chase not after the
estate of whoever shot the person, but the fucking label.
It's got to be Universal or whatever BMG is right now,
or Sony or something like that that's on the hook

(01:04:20):
because they've got the big pocket.

Speaker 4 (01:04:22):
Yeah, this is how it goes.

Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
So, Yeah, the minute this stops being profitable, it ends.
The minute drill music stops making a marginal profit, They're
not going to fucking sign drill rappers anymore because the
liability is too high, and as the liability arises enough,
drill rap disappears. It's not an accident. People are exacerbating

(01:04:46):
beef strictly for the fucking views. Well, yeah, like it's Instagram,
I mean does that? Yeah? I mean we're living through
it right.

Speaker 4 (01:04:56):
Now, I know, yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:57):
And I look at that, like, what the fuck? Why
are you millionaires emulating some like baby drill, Like what
the fuck are you doing?

Speaker 4 (01:05:06):
I mean because the kids like it, I guess.

Speaker 2 (01:05:09):
Because the kids like it, Like there's this and I
hate all of this because like the people who are
consuming this are not like most music sales are to
people who live in the suburbs, because they're the ones
with the money. Like the local kids are listening to it,
but they're not the ones who are financially contributing. Like
it is. Sure the wider broader market Atlanta influences everything,

(01:05:32):
taking this these images, these this music, this culture and
spreading it all over the world profitably. And now I'm
looking at like the marketing of black people behaving badly
and trying to kill each other, and I fear that,
like there's a commercial element of like a marketing push

(01:05:54):
for rappers to beef because people fight, fight, fight, fight,
even though you don't have a fucking stake in it, Like,
go ahead, guys, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (01:06:03):
Yeah, everyone's a world star, right Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
And then you go like there's a shooting it. Oh
my god, there's a lot of attention and media guys
show up. Add suddenly everybody's playing the music that they
weren't playing before, and yeah, here we are, like that
shit needs to be strangled in a fucking crib. Maybe
the Young Thunk trial is what gets us there. I
don't know, something needs to fucking change.

Speaker 1 (01:06:25):
What kind of message you want to leave for other
aspiring journalists coming up in this you know, weird time?

Speaker 2 (01:06:34):
Okay, well, what don't be afraid to get kicked out
of a place. We didn't even talk about the Trump shit.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
I know.

Speaker 4 (01:06:40):
I mean that's that's round test part two.

Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Then yeah, I guess, don't be afraid to get kicked out.
If you're not irritating somebody with your reporting, you're not
doing it right. Uh. Also ask good questions like we
ask weird questions. Ask questions that you think somebody would
be interested in hearing. The answer from don't waste your
time with stupid like pointless surface bullshit, Like you don't

(01:07:05):
have time. You don't have time either as a person
you're talking to. Think about the best possible question, the
most enlightening question you can ask before you get in
front of somebody, and then ask that question. And if
you are afraid to ask that question, ask that question first.

Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
Oh wow, that means.

Speaker 2 (01:07:20):
It's the good one.

Speaker 1 (01:07:22):
Yeah, right, before you forget it or talk yourself out
of it in your head.

Speaker 2 (01:07:25):
Oh what else? What else? What else? Your personal integrity
is everything. You lose that you lose your job. If
you cannot be trusted, you should not be a journalist.

Speaker 1 (01:07:33):
Right, That's that's the thing you're holding onto, right, that's
the thing that allows you to keep opening doors.

Speaker 2 (01:07:39):
Yeah. Also, don't be afraid of the future, like if
you are, if you understand how to dissert truth from bullshit,
you won't be employed. The only question is whether or
not you could be employed and have a roof over
your head. But like, there's there's a role for this,
and society will find a way to make it happen.

Speaker 4 (01:07:56):
Yeah, well I believe that.

Speaker 2 (01:07:58):
I like it. I hope this has been useful to you.

Speaker 4 (01:08:00):
Oh, this has been amazing, Like, I feel like I've
learned a bunch.

Speaker 2 (01:08:03):
This is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:08:04):
No, I think it's a really cool conversation. I think
that it's a.

Speaker 4 (01:08:07):
Good take on the trial too.

Speaker 1 (01:08:10):
Haven't been able to sit down and talk about those
aspects of anybody like that before.

Speaker 2 (01:08:14):
I'm glad.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
So, yeah, I appreciate that, lad.

Speaker 2 (01:08:16):
It was useful.

Speaker 4 (01:08:16):
Yeah, No, that was awesome.

Speaker 6 (01:08:19):
Talking to Death is a production of Tenorfoot TV and
iHeart Podcasts, created and hosted by Payne Lindsay. For Tenderfoot TV,
executive producers are Payne Lindsay and Donald Albright. Co executive
producer is Mike Rooney. For iHeart Podcasts, executive producers are
Matt Frederick and Alex Williams. With original music by Makeup

(01:08:40):
and Vanity Set. Additional production by Mike Rooney, Dylan Harrington,
Sean Nerney, Dayton Cole, and Gustav Wilde for Cohedo. Production
support by Tracy Kaplan, Mara Davis, and Trevor Young. Mixing
and mastering by Cooper Skinner and Dayton Cole. Our cover
art was created by Rob Sheridan. Check out our website

(01:09:01):
Talking to Death podcast dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Thanks for listening. To this episode of Talking to Death.
This series is released weekly absolutely free, but if you
want ad free listening and exclusive bonuses, you can subscribe
to tenderfoot Plus on Apple Podcasts or go to tenderfootplus
dot com