(Atlanta) “This is the environment in which he grew up”: the lawyer of American rapper Young Thug, on trial for organized crime in Atlanta, assured Tuesday that the verses of his songs describe a crude reality but do not constitute This doesn’t mean there’s any evidence against him.
Arrested in May 2022 and kept in detention since then, the 32-year-old artist, an influential figure in hip-hop, is accused of having led one of the branches of an Atlanta street gang identified as “Youg Slime Life », or YSL.
In support of the accusation against the gang, alleged acts of murder, drug trafficking or violent car thefts.
Prosecutors rely in particular, as evidence, on certain lyrics of Young Thug’s songs, supposed to demonstrate his participation in criminal activities, a method criticized by defenders of freedom of expression and players in the music industry.
For his lawyer, Brian Steel, Young Thug’s verses describing murders, shootings or drug trafficking, “it’s the environment in which he grew up, it’s the people he knew, the stories he known” in his poor neighborhood of Atlanta, Georgia.
During his opening argument, the day after that of the prosecution, the lawyer added that the rapper aspired to success and fame to “break the generational despair” of his family and that his personal experience had nourished a deep distrust of justice and authorities.
Brian Steel described a scene where one of the rapper’s brothers was shot near their apartment building and police handcuffed his desperate mother and covered the victim with a sheet while she was still breathing.
According to the lawyer, Young Thug engaged in feuds on social media not as a gang member, but to “generate interest” in his work, as is often the case in the rap industry.
“You’ll learn that that’s part of being involved in hip-hop or rap,” Brian Steel said, drawing a parallel with sports. “The battles that take place on social networks arouse interest, just like the rivalries in the NFL”, the American football championship, he compared.
The prosecution retained 17 extracts from Young Thug’s songs which constitute confessions to the crimes of which the rapper is accused. After the opening arguments, the trial, which takes place before a popular jury, is likely to last several months and continue into 2024.