2024 has been a very combative year for hip-hop, that almost goes without saying. The number of beefs that us and fans are witnessing is quite remarkable, but also kind of saddening. Sure, the competitive nature of it all is something that has helped revitalized the genre after a down year in 2023 in some respects. However, wishing for a more exciting stretch has come with some drawbacks for sure. The loss of fantastic duos is probably the most glaring of them all. Drake being up against well over a dozen MCs and adjacent acts has stripped away a lot of potential collabs. Once some of his closest pals in Metro Boomin and Future are now mortal enemies.
We could go on and on about the rest, but we now have to shift our focus to Gunna and Young Thug. There are the most recent to be at odds thanks to a tweet and delete from the YSL boss. “Gunna stop acting like we friends on the internet, I don’t know u my guy,” he tweeted days after his release from the RICO trial. Gunna has yet to speak on the matter, but we are almost 100% positive he’s on that same energy. It’s got us reminiscing on tracks between Gunna and Young Thug like “Lesbian,” which seem like a relic of the past now. It may be a Metro Boomin track, but the way they were able to match each other’s energy was special anytime the worked together was special. Time usually heals most things, so hopefully, that’s all that’s required.
I might start coppin’ gold like I’m Mr. T (What?) I wan’ ride the new Rolls or that Bentley B (That Bentley B) Yeah we gon’ cop some Chanel, the double C (That double C) I done bought her a bag, got her lovin’ me (Yeah) I’ma pop, I’ma flex like I’m Double D (Flex, wet) I’ma hop on the jet, hit another city (‘Nother city)
Jeffery Williams and Sergio Kitchens quickly became one of the hottest rap duos not just out of Atlanta, but across the whole genre in the late 2010s. As Young Thug and Gunna, respectively, they cranked out hit after hit, with the former’s influence on the latter and their personal friendship resulting in undeniable chemistry. Despite a lot of legal roadblocks, challenges, and conflicts, the main public narrative maintained an air of support and brotherhood between them. So why do folks think – or perhaps know – that the “Hot” collaborators are now beefing with each other?
As you may imagine, the YSL RICO case threw a huge wrench into their relationship, especially following Gunna’s plea deal almost two years ago. Snitching narratives ensued, defenses emerged, and Young Thug was all quiet about the whole ordeal… Until now, allegedly. With all this in mind, we’re here to break down the history of their bond, their eventual success as label-bound collaborators, and their actions and developments during and after their stints in the YSL RICO trial that caused such public disarray with fans. While their relationship is still up in the air without a full-blown (and not deleted) statement from both sides, things don’t look too promising for any advocates for their unity. How did this happen?
Gunna first met in Young Thug in 2015 through mutual friend and community leader Keith “King” Troup. Wunna went to Thugger’s “With That” music video shoot for his Barter 6project in the south side of Atlanta in 2015, and from there, they formed a close friendship that eventually evolved into a collaborative relationship. Troup sadly passed away in December 2015, something that the “Sold Out Dates” rapper says strengthened his familial bond with his “Halftime” mentor.
August 26, 2016: Young Thug Introduces Gunna To The World
On August 26, 2016, Young Thug released his beloved mixtape JEFFERY, which featured superstar rappers like Travis Scott, Gucci Mane, and more. But this also became Gunna’s first introduction to a massive audience following an earlier mixtape under a different artist name from 2013. He appeared on the track “Floyd Mayweather” alongside La Flame and Guwop.
October 14, 2016: Drip Season & YSL Records Launch
The official connections for these next two events are a bit confusing, but here’s what we can gather. On October 14, 2016, Gunna released his debut mixtape under this artist name, Drip Season, and featured Young Thug on the track “Cop Me A Foreign.” This mixtape was released under YSL Records, which Thugger would officially announce as his new record label just a few weeks later on November 15. Furthermore, this social media announcement explained it as an imprint of 300 Entertainment. While it seems odd to have a project come out under a label that its founder announced weeks later, we presume that they still had some paperwork to sort out concerning these official launches that wouldn’t have impacted Drip Season‘s release.
February 2017: Wunna Is Officially YSL
PHILADELPHIA, PA – JUNE 2: Rapper, Gunna, performs during Day 2 of the Roots Picnic festival 2024, in Fairmount Park in Philadelphia, PA. (Photo by Brandon Laws/HotNewHipHop)
We told you this timeline is a tad confusing, didn’t we? Around February 2017, Young Thug and YSL Records officially announced that they signed Gunna to the imprint. Looking back, it’s unclear whether or not this was already public knowledge given Drip Season and the JEFFERY feature, but regardless, this is when things were set in stone for good. Also, the details of this record deal and how they relate to his subsequent release schedule are unclear when it comes to financial agreements, rights, number and nature of releases, etc. Nevertheless, the College Park native went into full gear with various albums and mixtapes under the label, including Drip Season 2 that year, Drip Harder with Lil Baby in 2018, 2020’s WUNNA, and 2022’s DS4EVER. And of course, Thug’s featured on all of them.
This is when the tale of Young Thug and Gunna takes a turn for the worse. On May 9, 2022, federal authorities indicted them along with 26 other YSL affiliates in a sprawling RICO case alleging various furtherances of criminal activity. Police arrested Thugger that same day, who faced the brunt of the charges as the purported leader of the supposed “gang.” On the other hand, Wunna turned himself in to authorities two days later on May 11. He faced a single count of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO). The court denied both of them bond on several occasions as the rap world reacted to this shocking and stake-heavy move by prosecutors.
December 14, 2022: Gunna Takes A Plea Deal
Then, Gunna’s career took its most significant turn since its inception. On December 14, 2022, he took an Alford plea deal in the Young Thug and YSL RICO trial, which means that he pleaded guilty to his count of conspiracy to violate the RICO act while maintaining his claim of innocence. Authorities released him from prison the very same day. The Drip Or Drown spitter then put out a statement denying any sort of testimony, cooperation, interview, or other processes that would make him a “snitch,” as allegations about that behavior quickly emerged from the hip-hop world and beyond.
However, court footage shows that Gunna answered “Yes” to a couple of key questions while accepting his plea deal in the Young Thug and YSL RICO case. He affirmed that YSL is both a record label and allegedly a gang, that he had knowledge of crimes allegedly committed by its affiliates, that guns and drugs found by police during a search on a car that he was in along with Young Thug were not his, that YSL is allegedly a gang that must end, and that he furthered the alleged crimes of the collective through his music.
June 16, 2023: Wunna Drops, And Young Thug Follows
About six months after Gunna’s plea deal, he dropped his comeback album a Gift & a Curse via YSL Records with no features on June 16, 2024. The album continues to speak on the YSL RICO case and against allegedly false snitching allegations, which some rappers like Lil Durk and Lil Baby seemingly espoused through subliminal lyrics. That’s in addition to the broader conversation labeling him as a “snitch.” The LP was a commercial success and held hit singles like “fukumean.” A week later on June 23, Young Thug dropped an album of his own, BUSINESS IN BUSINESS, while still in jail on RICO charges.
It’s important to note that neither Gunna nor Young Thug featured on each other’s projects from this year. In addition, while Thugger remained silent on his relationship with Wunna, his “DOLLAZ ON MY HEAD” collaborator has remained publicly supportive of Thug and YSL ever since his plea deal. This came amid unconfirmed and seemingly misguided rumors that Wunna wanted to leave YSL Records, plus the discussion around the snitching allegations that the hip-hop community and beyond engaged in.
May 10, 2024: One Of Wun
Amid Young Thug’s trial in the YSL RICO case, Gunna dropped yet another album on May 10, 2024. One Of Wun featured artists like Offset and Roddy Ricch, and some fans speculated that some of its lyrics responded to rappers calling him a “snitch.” The new record was released via YSL Records once more.
As if the little text under an album on Spotify wasn’t enough, Gunna clarified his presence on Young Thug’s YSL Records via a video interview with the streaming platform’s RapCaviar playlist division, published on June 24, 2024 amid his tour. “I’m still signed to YSL,” he shared outside of his mother’s house. “I’m still providing. We’re still pushing. No paperwork has been changed, you know what I’m saying? So it’s like, whatever’s been getting and how we’ve been pushing this s**t, it’s still going.”
Via an Instagram Story post on August 4, 2024, YSL cofounder YSL Mondo retracted his previous claims that Gunna was a “snitch.” This was the latest defense of Wunna against the snitching allegations in his direction by key collective members before Young Thug’s release. For example, Thug’s father Jeffery Williams Sr. publicly expressed his support for him on multiple occasions, even popping out for one of his concerts and asking other rappers to stop speaking about him and the snitching allegations.
As a Halloween treat, fans learned that they might finally find an answer to the Young Thug and Gunna rumors. On October 31, 2024, Thugger entered a plea deal in the YSL RICO case that resulted in his freedom that very same day, with 15 years of probation to follow. As part of his release conditions, he and his lawyer Brian Steel asked if he could maintain his working relationships with Wunna and with Thug’s biological brother Unfoonk, who was also a codefendant in the YSL RICO case. This was because one of the probation guidelines barred contact with YSL affiliates, but Judge Paige Reese Whitaker approved both exceptions. In the “bread & butter” artist’s case, it was due to his contractual obligation to YSL Records.
November 9, 2024: Thugger Fans The Flames Of The Feud
Finally, we arrive at our current juncture and the most solid piece of “evidence” supporting Young Thug and Gunna’s beef. On November 9, 2024, the former tweeted and then quickly deleted the following message toward the latter: “Stop acting like we friends on the internet, I don’t know u my guy.” This followed some other curious social media messages from Thugger about collaborating with Lil Baby (a previous supposed Wunna critic) to “drop one on these rats.” Given the deletion of the tweet and its emergence so soon after his release from prison, many fans speculated that someone hacked his Twitter account to cause false division.
No matter whether Young Thug intended to publish this tweet shading Gunna or not, the message seems to have stuck. Wunna’s brother reportedly responded to this deleted tweet with the following message: “Trust and believe the feeling is mutual [blue P emoji].” Until we get a clear and direct statement from both rappers, it seems like this iconic rap camaraderie is over… For now.
Young Thug has certainly managed to make waves following his release from prison late last month. The rapper was behind bars for over two years facing RICO charges and eventually accepted a plea deal after a long and chaotic trial. He appears to have wasted no time getting back to work amid his newfound freedom, as he was spotted in the studio alongside several of his peers earlier this week.
This included Travis Scott, Future, and Lil Baby. According to DJ Akademiks, however, he might want to choose his collaborators a bit more wisely. During a recent stream, Akademiks noted how important it is for Young Thug’s next project to be solid. “Thug, if your first album ain’t hotter than Gunna’s last album? Bruh, we might tell ’em ‘we’re good,’” he explained. He went on, arguing that Young Thug’s perception could be off since he was incarcerated.
“Thug been locked up. I don’t know how he’s been viewing what’s going on in the real world. Listen, you in the studio, Baby is like a block of ice. So if you think you was gonna go in there to cook up some heat? You need to throw a Baby out first,” he said. “If you think you about to cook up some mid and think we finna cancel Gunna, who is cooking up pure crack cocaine? It’s not gonna happen.” Akademiks continued, pointing out how most fans care about the quality of an artist’s music more than alleged snitching. For this reason, he thinks fans will continue to support Gunna despite any rumored beef.
His remarks came just days after Young Thug appeared to diss Gunna on X. “Gunna stop acting like we friends on the internet, I don’t know u my guy,” the tweet read. Akademiks responded to this by claiming he knew they seemingly had beef all along, and speculating that Young Thug only asked the judge for permission to contact Gunna for business reasons.
Young Thug and Gunna are apparently beefing for real, as the former’s tweeted and deleted shade towards the latter elicited a lot of reactions on social media. However, the foundation for this feud still remains a pretty speculative one thanks to a lot of mixed signals and a lack of clarity over whether or not someone hacked Thugger or if this was really his intention. Still, this offered vindication for many fans and media outlets who supported this notion, including DJ Akademiks. He took to Twitter on Saturday (November 9) to offer some lengthy messages on this matter, doubling down on the previous theories and allegations that he provided to social media.
“I been told yall..” DJ Akademiks wrote on the platform about the Young Thug and Gunna situation, referring to his previous theories. “Thug told durk baby and a few other rappers that Gunna was no good while [in prison]. Meaning it aint no way he can come back out and justify rockin wit gunna when he told n***as not to rock wit gunna [while in prison].”
Furthermore, DJ Akademiks alleged that Young Thug wanted to drop his BUSINESS IS BUSINESS album last year on the same day as Gunna’s a Gift & a Curse. Also, he claimed that Thug wanted to have Lil Durk and Lil Baby (two seemingly anti-Wunna MCs) as features and even told them about this plan. In addition, Ak posited that the “Jonesboro” spitter will claim that this was all the result of a hack, but that the signs are there concerning his aversion to the “fukumean” creative. As for why Thug requested to maintain his contractual relationship with the College Park native as part of his probation negotiations, the media personality theorized that this was because he’s still in unfulfilled contracts with Gunna that could give him an excuse to leave the label if he wasn’t able to stay in contact.
Meanwhile, DJ Akademiks claimed most management or production deals are voided by label heads with a legal obligation to become available to people who signed a deal with someone who gets incarcerated. Apparently, this would also apply to a contact ban, as Young Thug has concerning YSL affiliates. Finally, Ak spoke on a label merger that puts Gunna in the same boat as Thug.
Young Thug caused quite a stir when he left prison on a plea deal in the YSL RICO case, but not solely for the reasons you might expect. Of course, people wonder when he will pop out publicly again and whether or not there’s new music from him coming soon. But Thugger also shocked rap fans – or seemingly confirmed their fears – by allegedly shading Gunna in a tweet-and-delete. “Stop acting like we friends on the internet, I don’t know u my guy,” he wrote in the since-deleted post, which many assumed was a hack. For those unaware, fans assumed tension thanks to previous messages from the Atlanta MC about his protégé, and the fact that Wunna took a plea deal in the YSL trial.
Well, it seems like no matter what caused this tweet, Gunna took it negatively. An IG account reportedly belonging to his brother commented under an Instagram post covering the Young Thug tweet-and-delete, and had this to say: “Trust and believe the feeling is mutual [blue P emoji],” he shared. The College Park rapper previously advocated for Thug in public, with Thug’s father Jeffrey Williams Sr. even defending him amid snitching claims. This is one of the many factors that have fans scratching their heads, as there are a lot of mixed signals.
Another mixed signal is how Young Thug and his lawyer Brian Steel actually asked for him to be able to continue to work with Gunna as part of his probation conditions. If you didn’t hear, the restrictions barred contact with YSL affiliates, but these two are contractually bound to the same label. With all this in mind, it seems like this unexplained message fell on combative ears regardless of its intent, context, or whether or not Thugger was even the one to tweet it out.
Meanwhile, Lil Baby seems to have something on the way with Young Thug, based on the latter’s tweets. He also allegedly shaded Gunna a lot over his “snitching,” so this led fans to believe the beef theory even more. We’ll surely get a definitive answer one day, but if you hoped for a reconciliation, things don’t look promising.
Young Thug and Gunna are stirring up quite the frenzy on social media (Twitter to be specific) right now. This is all thanks to a tweet and delete from the YSL leader that quickly caught many fans’ attention. “Gunna stop acting like we friends on the internet, I don’t know u my guy,” Thugger wrote. It’s a very shocking revelation, as there was a valid belief that both Atlanta rappers were on good terms. Following his release from trial hell at the end of October, he was ordered to not have any communication with any YSL members. However, Thug’s brother and Gunna are omitted from that stipulation.
In turn, that also means that they can put out new music together. However, that seems to be out of the realm of possibility. We have some optimism here, as this situation could be the victim of hacking. Given how much noise was around this trial and all of the snitching allegations, someone could be trying to get their 15 minutes. But until Thug speaks out, the internet is going to assume otherwise. That’s what everyone is doing right now and in a variety of ways.
Did Young Thug Get Hacked Or Did He Mean To Diss Gunna?
I been told yall.. Thug told durk baby and a few other rappers that Gunna was no good while he was incarcerated… meaning.. it aint no way he can come back out and justify rockin wit gunna when he told niggas not to rock wit gunna when he was locked.
DJ Akademiks was one of the main pundits in firm belief that Thug and Gunna were at odds, claiming that the former was spreading the news to other MCs that the latter is a rat. He doubled down following the tweet, which you can see above. Kai Cenat also caught wind of this, and his reaction is both hilarious and probably accurate for some. Others are taking the time to crack the best joke, using memes to bolster them. There are also some saying that Thug is making a mistake by choosing Lil Baby over his YSL brother and taking Gunna’s side in the process. Overall, these next 24 hours could be very telling.
What are your thoughts on Young Thug’s supposed tweet and delete about Gunna? What reaction do you relate to the most and why? If this is real, do you think these two will ever work together again? We would like to hear what you have to say, so leave your thoughts in the comments. Additionally, always keep it locked in with HNHH for all of the latest news surrounding Young Thug and Gunna. Finally, stay with us for everything else going on in the music world.
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