Young Thug, a rapper from Atlanta, is accused of being the leader of a violent street gang. | Wikimedia Commons/Frank Schwichtenberg
Young Thug, a rapper from Atlanta, is accused of being the leader of a violent street gang. | Wikimedia Commons/Frank Schwichtenberg
Jury selection will continue this week in the trial of Atlanta rap star Young Thug, accused of being the leader of a violent street gang, according to Fox 5 Atlanta.
With legal experts predicting the trial could be long and drawn out, the witness list for the prosecution and the defense contains hundreds of names, including rap stars such as Lil Wayne, Rich Homie Quan and YFN Lucci.
"It’ll be very interesting to watch from all aspects," Mo Ivory, a law professor and director of the entertainment, sports and media law program at Georgia State University, told Fox 5 Atlanta. "We can expect all the things that we’ve ever seen when you have watched a high-profile case."
Prosecutors accuse Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffrey Williams, of being the head of the violent Young Slime Life (YSL) street gang, which authorities say used drugs and committed murders to make money and maintain power on local streets. However, attorneys for Young Thug insist he is just an artist and YSL is just a record label.
"The defendants will do what they have continually been saying, which is to defend that this is not the case at all, that these lyrics are not gang activities but an expression of black art," Ivory told Fox 5 Atlanta.
Among the list of witnesses, there are also 157 witnesses affiliated with the Atlanta Police Department.
The trial will be unusual, in that much of the evidence is based song lyrics by Young Thug and other artists who are being charged as gang members, which is considered a controversial approach by the prosecution.
"Everybody is watching to see what will happen," Ivory told Fox 5 Atlanta.
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