ATLANTA — The RICO trial against Young Thug and YSL took a brief musical turn in court Thursday, with the playing of the song "Lifestyle" featuring the Atlanta rapper.
The song, roughly four minutes long, was played in full for the court.
The matter of Young Thug's lyrics being used as evidence has come up before from prosecutors who want to use the lyrics to paint a picture of the rapper as the ringleader of an alleged YSL street gang -- but in this case, it was actually Young Thug's lawyer Brian Steel who brought up the music video for the song.
What was the deal?
Why 'Lifestyle' by Young Thug was played in court
Steel wanted to introduce the video as evidence for his argument that Young Thug has no gang ties, and that much of the prosecution's case simply criminalizes the rapper's art. Steel told Judge Glanville he wanted to use the video -- in testimony with a YSL co-founder, Trontatiouvs Stephens -- to establish three things.
One of his reasons, he said, was that the video features the group Rich Gang, and Steel argued he was "entitled to show jurors what Rich Gang is, that this is their music compilation."
The second, Steel said, was that it showed other people wearing red -- the color associated with the Bloods gang and allegedly YSL's gang color -- but not Young Thug (whose legal name is Jeffery Williams). And the third was that Steel wanted the video, in part, to explain Young Thug's relationship with two other rappers in the video, Rich Homie Quan and Birdman.
Was the video allowed to be introduced as evidence?
Judge Glanville would not allow it introduced as evidence at this time during the questioning of Stephens.
The judge conceded "the evidence is relevant and admissible for the reasons you told me," but said it would have to come with another, more directly relevant witness - possibly either Birdman or Rich Homie Quan themselves.
"I understand this is the State's case and you're trying to get what you need, he's just not the witness to do so," Glanville told Steel.
After a brief argument from Steel to reconsider, Glanville added: "I'm gonna look at the evidence depending on the circumstances before me... remember what I told you about lyrics and everything else -- it is dependent upon what is presented in terms of a foundation, I believe I made that very clear."
The trial will take a break Friday and all through next week, resuming the week after. The judge told the court the break was for jurors to take some time off and handle personal matters.