YSL Records

Gunna and Young Thug were among 28 YSL members arrested in May and charged in a 56-count grand jury indictment that included “conspiring to violate the Racketeer Influenced And Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, murder, armed robbery, and participation in criminal street gang activity,” as reported first by WSB-TV’s Michael Seiden. Gunna remained optimistic — sharing an open letter from Fulton County Jail in June that partially stated his innocence and intention to “never stop fighting to clear my name” — despite being denied bond three times.

Today, December 14, Gunna was finally freed. WSB-TV reported that Gunna “entered a negotiated plea, known as an Alford plea, in which a defendant doesn’t admit he committed the crime but acknowledges that it is in his best interest to plead guilty.” Gunna pled guilty to one charge of conspiracy to violate the RICO Act, and his subsequent five-year sentence, with one year being commuted to time served and the remaining four-year sentence “suspended and will be subject to special conditions, including 500 hours of community service,” per WSB-TV.

This evening, videos began circulating of Gunna leaving Fulton County Jail in Atlanta. The multiplatinum-certified rapper was all smiles, embracing a woman and walking hand-in-hand with her to his car.

Gunna released a statement upon his plea deal.

“When I became affiliated with YSL in 2016, I did not consider it a ‘gang’; more like a group of people from metro Atlanta who had common interests and artistic aspirations. My focus of YSL was entertainment — rap artists who wrote and performed music that exaggerated and ‘glorified’ urban life in the Black community,” it reads, in part.

Gunna emphasized he chose to enter an Alford plea to “end my personal ordeal by publicly acknowledging my association with YSL” and his plan to “look at this as an opportunity to give back to my community and educate young men and women that ‘gangs’ and violence can only lead to destruction.” The two-time Grammy nominee additionally clarified that he has “absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way.”

Young Thug is still in jail, awaiting an upcoming trial expected to draw “around 300 witnesses.”

Read Gunna’s full statement below.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Gunna will be released from Fulton County Jail after seven months after pleading guilty to a charge of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, according to WSB-TV. His sentence was commuted to time served thanks to a plea deal, which reduced a five-year sentence to a one-year sentence with suspension on the remaining four years subject to 500 hours of community service.

Gunna was arrested in May along with Young Thug and 26 other members of the YSL group after being indicted on 56 counts of racketeering, murder, armed robbery, and more. The case has drawn criticism for using Gunna and Thug’s lyrics as evidence of their membership in a criminal organization. Prosecutors claim that their label, YSL, is a “hybrid street gang” responsible for a wave of violent crime in the Atlanta area over the past decade. While both Gunna and Young Thug maintained their innocence, they were repeatedly denied their petitions for bond as the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office maintained that they were a witness tampering risk. Young Thug remains in jail awaiting the trial early next year.

In a statement, Gunna insisted that the plea deal was not the result of his cooperation with authorities. It reads, “While I have agreed to always be truthful, I want to make it perfectly clear that I have NOT made any statements, have NOT been interviewed, have NOT cooperated, have NOT agreed to testify or be a witness for or against any party in the case and have absolutely NO intention of being involved in the trial process in any way.” Despite this, he can still be called to testify when the trial against the remaining members of YSL, including Young Thug, proceeds in January. He can, however, choose to exercise his Fifth Amendment rights if called upon to testify.

Gunna hopes the third time will be the charm as he files another motion for bond, saying the state has “no evidence” he’s a danger to the community. According to Complex, Gunna’s legal team says that as the “only serious overt act” in the case against Gunna dropped last month, the rapper deserves “yet another hearing on bond.” Two previous motions were denied, as prosecutors convinced a judge that Gunna would be either a flight risk or a danger to the case, with the means to intimidate or buy off witnesses or abscond entirely.

However, according to documents filed by his attorneys on September 26, “The State has presented no evidence to support its claims of dangerousness and has dismissed the only serious overt act (75) that was present when the first bond hearing was held.”

The case against Gunna, Young Thug, and the rest of YSL has been controversial from the start. Prosecutors connected the high-profile rappers to the criminal activity in the indictment against the alleged street gang mainly through their lyrics shouting out YSL — also the name of their record label — while the group’s defenders have pointed to their history of philanthropy and activism as undermining the state’s characterization of YSL as a dangerous criminal organization.

Both rappers have maintained their innocence, and have reportedly remained in good spirits throughout the ordeal. Meanwhile, bills to protect lyrics as free speech and prevent them from being used as evidence in criminal trials have gained prominence as efforts to protect Black music from being stereotyped as criminal pick up momentum nationwide.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.