For practically the entire year, the hip-hop community has been wondering what type of friendship Atlanta rappers Young Thug and Gunna have nowadays. Well, at least when it comes to Thug’s father, we now know that he does not view Gunna in a bad light at all.
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“I love Gunna,” Thug’s dad Jeffrey Williams Sr. said during an interview with YouTube blogger Infamous Sylvia on Friday (September 15). “Let me try to help the attorney clarify that a little simpler. Gunna hasn’t done anything whatsoever that can hurt us on this case, period.”
In regards to the case Williams Sr. mentions above, he is talking about the racketeering charges brought against the Young Stoner Life record label, which was founded by and still run by Young Thug and includes Gunna on its roster. In May 2022, Thug, Gunna, and many others within YSL were arrested by Fulton County Police for violating the state of Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act.
Though Thug and a few others are still in jail awaiting their RICO trial, where Thug faces eight counts relating to conspiracy and possession of drugs and firearms, Gunna was able to obtain his freedom with a plea deal last December.
Thanks to his plea, Gunna earned probation and a penalty of community service. However, many fans of YSL believed and still believe that Gunna’s plea potentially made it more difficult for Thug and others to prove their innocence, considering his admission that YSL was a gang. Gunna and his team would deny this, though, insisting that the plea could not be used against any of the other defendants.
[RELATED: YSL Update: Young Thug Denied Bond for the Fourth Time]
In his conversation with Infamous Sylvia, Williams Sr. sided with Gunna, and even explained how he wanted Gunna to satisfy his requirements of the plea as soon as he can.
“I told him four times, ‘You need to start doing that community service and get it over with so you can be done with this case,'” Williams Sr. recalled.
Earlier this summer, Gunna and Thug both released separate studio albums, the former’s being a Gift & a Curse and the latter’s being Business is Business, of course with Thug’s coming out while still incarcerated. Though there was a lyric on one of Thug’s new songs that seemed like it could have been a diss to Gunna, it’s unlikely that Thug was able to record music while behind bars, and that it was instead a verse written before his arrest.
Additionally, throughout the entire ordeal, Gunna has stood beside Thug and has supported him vocally, evident in the “Free Jeffery” sign he had up at his recent concert in Brooklyn.
Watch Williams Sr.’s new interview below.
Photo by Amy E. Price/Getty Images for SXSW
