Jeffery Williams, aka Young Thug, totally surprised everyone on Sunday, September 28, after announcing a free concert right outside the Fulton County Courthouse in Atlanta. He announced the news on his X account that afternoon, giving fans less than three hours to get there for the 4 p.m. show.
A massive crowd gathered, waiting over an hour for him to appear. When he finally did, he hyped up the audience with his music and even opened up about his time in jail.
He had been locked up for a few years while facing RICO and gang charges during the long YSL RICO trial, which was held at the very courthouse where he performed.
Before his performance, Young Thug chatted with the crowd on the courthouse steps. He took the mic and shared a message during an event that Fulton County Sheriff Patrick “Pat” Labat called an “anti-violence, anti-gun, and anti-gang rally.”
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With a microphone in hand, the 34-year-old rapper said in part, “Man, I wanted to take the time to come to Atlanta, the place I’m from, and I wanted to perform for y’all for free, man. And I wanted to do it at this place because this place changed my life for the better, man. You know, this is not the place you want to be —on the bad side. You know, when you come here, you want to be a lawyer, you want to be a DA. You want to be on that side. You don’t want to be on the defendant’s side, you know. This place shaped me, man.”
He added, “This place changed my life. Shout out to Sheriff Labat, you know, the whole community, the whole police academy, for allowing me to do this. This is strictly for, just like, people like us. You know, the greater good. Man, we gotta mature and we gotta grow up and boss up. This is not the place to be — on the bad side. Life is much more than this and you know, that’s why I wanted to do it right here. This is not a flex. This is not nothing crazy. I don’t want nobody to think that this is nothing crazy. This is purely the perfect place for me to perform because this place changed my life forever.”
Young Thug captivated the audience for about 30 minutes with his performance. After the performance, 11Alive caught up with the rapper and asked him how it felt to be back in Atlanta, especially at the Fulton County Courthouse.
“You know, it means a lot, man. You know, this place changed my life for the better,” he said. “So, it’s super important. I feel like I needed to do this more than anything.”
Sheriff Labat posted on social media following the event, saying that the courthouse served as the perfect place for the event because it is a good reminder that almost everybody deserves a second chance.
“Our community benefits if these powerful words touch just one young man or woman and keep them out of the court system and the Fulton County Jail,” Labat said.
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Young Thug released his first full-length album on September 26, since returning home from jail after being on trial in Fulton County.
He was previously restricted from metro Atlanta because of his YSL case probation, but that changed last December. Now, he’s allowed to go home for up to two weeks, four times a year.
Young Thug recently appeared on the “It’s Up There” podcast, where he discussed his album, UY SCUTI, according to HNHH. During his conversation with Big Loon, a video on Twitter showed him explaining the album’s cover, which features him looking like a white man. Additionally, the opening track, “Ninja,” drew criticism for its use of the N-word with a hard R.
“I think it was just, like, some funny s**t,” the rapper said. “But it’s still serious to the point where I went with it. […] We always joked and played in my hood. ‘N***a, you want to be the biggest, go white.’ […] We just talking s**t… It’s just a narrative that the world paint. And we just going with the narrative… ‘Michael Jackson went white for this,’ we know that ain’t true. We just go with the motions. It’s just all fun. […] They always let the white people be the biggest. I love white people, too… We got big-a** artists too that’s Black… I was just pushing the envelope a little bit.”
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