DThang is one of the hottest up-and-coming rappers from the Bronx.
But he just hit a major setback
after getting arrested and sent to Riker’s Island for weapons possession.
Let’s dive into what happened.
Around 11:45 pm on November 11th
DThang, and three other people got pulled over by police
at Briggs Avenue and East 194th Street.
During the stop, they found a loaded Beretta pistol with a scratched serial number.
DThang was arrested for 2nd-degree weapons possession, which is a class C felony.
He was brought to Riker’s Island
and is currently being held on a $100,000 bail or $200,000 bond,
which he’ll be allowed to post at his next court hearing.
DThang’s arrest record shows a long list of charges,
mostly for weapons and drug possession.
New York is pretty strict on guns,
so the rapper may be looking at doing some time for this charge.
Recently, the NYPD has been cracking down on weapons,
since the crime in the city went up after the pandemic.
The murder rate in New York City shot up by 47% in 2020
compared to the previous year and shootings went up by 166% in 2021.
So, police have responded by going hard on anyone caught with a burner,
especially if they’re gang-affiliated.
DThang was just starting to build a buzz with his music
over the past year with the explosion of Bronx drill.
His cousin is one of the hottest rappers in the drill movement: K Flock.
But they from rival gangs and are known to diss each other in songs and on social media.
This family beef got NY drill fans tapped in and it created more attention for their music.
But behind the scenes is a deadly war that’s turned these cousins against each other.
Check out our video on The War In The Bronx for more info on this beef.
DThang was born and raised in the Bronx,
at the River Park Towers complex in the Morris Heights neighborhood.
Growing up, he established himself as a hustler
and was well respected in his hood.
He’s from a gang called the YG’s or the Young Gunnas.
They considered one of the most hated gangs in the borough
and are known to beef with gangs like the OG’s and Sevside.
Sevside is the gang Kay Flock is from, which is where their beef really started.
DThang dropped his first track, Caution in August 2020.
The song instantly went viral and currently has over 1.3 million views on YouTube.
Before that DThang says he never really thought of being a rapper.
But, the success of his first single made him realize he might have a future in music.
He was given the nickname DThang by one of his homies,
who was a fan of Chicago drill and was inspired by Lil Durk’s late brother
who went by the same name.
But the Bronx DThang was so focused on his own grind
that he wasn’t tapped into Chicago’s drill scene.
He ain’t even know where the name came from until after he blew up.
DThang would capitalize off the success of Caution
by dropping more singles and videos like Drama and Gzz Bop.
These songs racked up millions of plays
and made him one of the leading voices in Bronx drill.
According to DThang, him and his homies were the ones who started the Bronx drill wave.
Others give this credit to Ron Suno who dropped the track Pinocchio,
which went viral on Tik Tok back in 2019.
But DThang definitely helped push the sound and take it in a new direction.
But, while DThang was blowing up, his opps started gaining attention as well.
His cousin Kay Flock started dropping music in May 2020,
along with his homies Dougie B and B Lovee.
At first, Dougie B was the star of the group,
and Kay Flock was just the hype man.
But Dougie wanted to see all his homies eat
and taught Kay Flock how to rap and record his own music.
This turned out to be a smart move because when Kay Flock started to go viral,
they all blew up along with him.
Kay Flock dropped the track Is You Ready in August 2021,
then followed it up with the track Being Honest right after.
Both of these songs quickly blew up and have millions of views on YouTube.
Being Honest got remixed by G Herbo,
making Kay Flock one of the top rappers of the Bronx drill wave.
Kay Flock followed Chicago’s drill blueprint
and made obvious disses to his opps in his songs, including his cousin DThang.
On the track Is You Ready, Kay Flock raps
“Go ask my opps, it get ugly
I could do (shh) like Ice did to Sonny”.
This bar is referring to the movie Paid in Full
starring Wood Harris, Mekhi Phifer, and Cam’ron.
It’s based on the true story of Rich Porter, Azie Faison, and Alpo Martinez,
three dudes from Harlem who ran the drug game in the 80’s.
In the film, Mitch - the character based on Rich Porter -
gets his little brother Sonny, kidnapped for ransom.
He tries to get the money together to pay it back
but gets murdered before he gets the chance.
Sonny ends up getting killed and it’s revealed that he was kidnapped by a dude named Ice,
who was Mitch and Sonny’s uncle.
Ice was mad that Mitch kicked him out of the house
and killed his own blood relative to get payback.
So in the bar, Kay Flock is sending shots at his own cousin,
warning him he could do the same thing if he don’t stop dissing.
DThang responded by hopping on social media to laugh at the bar
and tell his cousin “can’t wait to see auntie now”.
Can’t wait to see auntie now
A month later, Dthang came back with his own diss track Talk Facts
where he not only disses his cousin but multiple other opps both dead and alive.
The beat to the song features a sample from the track Somebody I Used to Know by Gotye.
It’s become a theme in Bronx drill to use classic samples, tied in with distorted 808’s.
Talk Facts is one of the best examples of this trend.
As you’d expect, the diss track wasn’t taken well by DThang’s opps.
The song has escalated an already bloody war between the YGz, the OGz, and Sevside.
But it also racked up over 3.8 million views
and brought even more spotlight to DThang and his crew.
Not all attention is good attention especially, when you still got a foot in the streets.
It seems like all the beefing online and in music attracted the NYPDs attention,
who caught DThang with a gun.
His cousin Kay Flock recently also got arrested for weapons possession
while filming a music video, the day after Dthang was booked.
So, it seems like the cops got something against this new wave of Bronx drill rappers
and are trying to get them off the streets to prevent any more violence.
Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for both artists to leave the streets alone
and focus on making music,
so they don’t lose the opportunities they’ve been given.
But in a genre where fans expect rappers to keep living the life they rap about
to maintain their clout, that can be hard to do.
It don’t seem like these charges will end either of their careers.
But if they keep moving the same way,
it’s only a matter of time before something worse happens.