While being a poppin' rapper obviously comes with its benefits,
if you’re not careful, it can also bring drama.
If you’re still livin' the life you talk about in your music
or even associating with people who are,
all that attention can lead to your downfall.
YFN Lucci is the most recent rapper to get caught up in a legal situation
for allegedly being the leader of a national blood gang.
Let’s take a closer look at this story.
YFN Lucci is a rapper and singer from Atlanta, Georgia.
He grew up in the Summerhill neighborhood
and started taking music seriously at age 16
after being encouraged by rapper Johnny Cinco.
But before the music, he was involved in the streets,
and growing up his mother’s house was shot up twice.
He released his debut mixtape Wish Me Well in 2014
and started building a buzz in his city.
He started gaining national attention after his single Key to the Streets
featuring Migos and Trouble
peaked at #70 on the Billboard Hot 100 in 2016
and he followed up with a remix featuring Lil Wayne, 2 Chainz, and Quavo.
He released an EP called Long Live Nut;
a project dedicated to his friend Nut who helped Lucci get his first record deal
before getting killed early in the rapper’s career.
That EP contained the song Everyday We Lit
featuring PnB Rock
that became one of the artist's biggest hit’s to date
peaking at number 33 on the Billboard Hot 100.
Lucci seemed like he was on the path to fame and fortune,
until he was arrested in early 2021
and charged with a series of crimes that may put his career on hold for the next few years.
In January 2021,
the Atlanta police department issued a warrant for Lucci’s arrest,
claiming that he was the driver in a gang-related shootout
that left one person dead and another critically injured.
According to police, Lucci, along with two other alleged gang members
drove into opp territory in December 2020,
looking for drama.
When they saw their targets,
someone in the vehicle opened fire.
The targets fired back,
hitting one of the men in the car,
who was later identified as a 28-year-old man named James Adams.
James was thrown from the car and found by police dead on the side of the road.
Later that same day,
a 32-year-old man named Kevin Wright showed up at a local fire station
with a gunshot to the stomach and was treated for his injuries.
Police later arrested a 23-year-old man named Ray’von Boyd,
along with a 17-year-old named Leroy Pitts
for allegedly participating in the shooting.
Boyd is more commonly known as CP3,
a rapper from Liberty Square in Miami often called the Pork and Beans Projects.
Authorities allege that CP3 was the shooter
and Lucci was the driver in a gang hit that went wrong
and left one of their own people dead.
James Adams was allegedly shot in the head in the chaos
and pushed out of the car to die on the side of the road.
As a result, all three men in the car
– Lucci, CP3, and Leroy Pitts-
were charged with murder, aggravated assault,
participating in criminal street gang activity, among other charges.
Authorities claim that they purposefully drove into a rival gang territory
with the intention of committing acts of violence
and therefore are responsible for the death of their friend.
Lucci turned himself into police not long after the warrant was issued
and is currently fighting the case.
If convicted of the crime,
he potentially faces life in prison or the death penalty.
Then, in April, not long after being released on a $500,000 bond for the murder charge,
Lucci was arrested again after visiting a recording studio and strip club
that was somehow connected to the shooting.
It’s not clear what that connection is,
but authorities also claim that Lucci attempted to alter his court-ordered ankle monitor
to hide his location and failed a drug test.
They tried to revoke his bond as a punishment for these offenses.
If his bond is revoked,
he would have to stay in jail until the murder trial was over.
To make matters even worse,
in early May Lucci was hit with a Georgia RICO indictment
along with a dozen other alleged members of different sets of a national blood gang.
Despite admitting that Lucci is not an active member of the gang,
just an affiliate,
the authorities are trying to paint him as the ringleader of the organization,
who used his clout as a famous rapper to advance the crew’s agenda in the streets.
They are pointing to the December 2020 shooting as evidence
that Lucci is not just a rapper affiliated with the set,
he is an active participant in street activities.
The indictment targeted several blood gang sets from Atlanta to Miami.
Two sets from Atlanta – called ABG (or Atlanta Blood Gang)
and BG (or Bird Gang),
were named in the court paperwork.
These two sets are under the umbrella of the Inglewood Family Gangsta bloods,
a gang from Inglewood, California.
The Bloodhounds and 13th Ave Hot Boys
were two sets from Miami also targeted in the takedown
and are based in the Pork and Beans projects in Miami.
Lucci is alleged to have affiliations to the gangs in the Pork and Beans,
which is how he knows CP3.
Lucci is being accused of trying to unite the Miami and Atlanta blood sets
and push the agenda of the gang through music
and his own participation in street activities.
The prosecutors are using his music videos
and Instagram posts to paint Lucci as a violent gang leader.
They point to music videos and footage uploaded to the internet
of Lucci hanging out in the Pork and Beans projects, as evidence of his intentions.
They also point to an alleged incident where
Lucci nearly strangled a man to death for playing a rival gang member’s music,
then bribing him not to snitch.
They say that Lucci is not just an entertainer,
posting things to his social media to engage with fans,
but he is pushing a gang lifestyle
that is connected to his music and the violent culture around it.
They are using everything from red rags in music videos
to guns posted to Instagram
and tweets with photo captions referencing murder and other crimes as evidence
that Lucci, CP3 and everyone else involved in the case are violent criminals,
contributing to the advancement of a gang lifestyle.
So, Lucci is not just facing a murder charge that carries life,
he’s also facing a whole bunch of other charges related to the RICO indictment
that carry even more years.
Even though it’s definitely not looking great for Lucci at the moment,
he does have a few things going for him.
He isn’t being charged with a federal crime,
it’s a Georgia State Rico charge.
Usually when the Feds get involved it means you’re already ******,
because Federal cases have around a 90% conviction rate.
State cases are a little easier to beat,
but it means they can use more circumstantial evidence like social media posts.
State RICO cases also carry less time,
but the Georgia Rico Act
allows for a broader range of crimes to be considered racketeering,
so it may be tough for Lucci to beat every charge.
The other thing he has going for him
is that the prosecutors have acknowledged that he isn’t actually in a gang,
he’s just an affiliate.
It may be hard for them to charge him with a gang indictment
while admitting he isn’t actually an official member.
But the term gang can be pretty vague,
and prosecutors may try to argue that YFN itself is a set of the bloods.
They will have to show that the affiliation goes deeper than rap
but if they can prove Lucci is guilty of some of the violent crimes he’s accused of,
they may have a better case.
Another positive for Lucci
is that he isn’t suspected to be the shooter in his murder case.
The prosecutors will have to prove
that the crew drove into rival gang territory that night
intentionally looking for opps
and made the calculated decision to leave James Adams dead on the side of the road.
With a good lawyer,
he could argue that he just happened to be driving around with some people he knew,
and **** popped off that had nothing to do with him.
But the police allegedly recovered James’s cell phone
which had video footage they used to identify who was in the car.
What is on that cellphone could likely determine whether Lucci will walk
or face life in prison.
If the authorities want the case to stick,
they will have to have solid evidence
that Lucci committed violent crimes for the benefit of a gang.
The social media posts and other circumstantial evidence
may be able to tie him to the bloods
if they can prove he actually committed other crimes.
But without more solid evidence,
it may be hard for prosecutors to hit him with a RICO charge
just for wearing red rags and hanging out in the Pork and Beans.
His participation in the drive-by that led to the shooting of James Adams
is the biggest piece of evidence that authorities have
to prove Lucci was involved in gang activity.
Associating with other rappers who happen to be in a gang,
especially when it’s for the purpose of making music or social media content
isn’t a crime.
But being the getaway driver in a murder case is a bit more serious.
Racketeering charges can be hard for rappers to beat
because prosecutors don’t necessarily have to find you guilty of a crime –
they just have to prove that your actions
contributed to a culture of violence that led to the committing of a crime.
Many rappers over the past few years have been hit with federal racketeering charges,
from Bobby Shmurda to Cassanova to 6ix9ine.
If you look at the federal case against GS9,
Bobby Shmurda was never actually accused of actively participating
in any of the more serious crimes the gang allegedly committed.
But he still spent 7 years behind bars
because prosecutors claim that he was the face of the group
and responsible for orchestrating some of the violence.
Racketeering was a charge created to hold mafia bosses accountable for crimes
committed at their direction.
Before the RICO ACT was passed in 1970,
the courts had a hard time pinning crimes on the bosses at the top of the organization,
because they rarely were the ones committing the crimes themselves.
The RICO Act made it possible to charge members of a criminal organization
with crimes that they ordered or otherwise participated in.
In recent years, the RICO Act
has been used to target different types of criminal organizations,
including street gangs, especially those associated with famous rappers.
Lucci is facing a state RICO case
and not a Federal Case, but the idea is still the same.
Under the Georgia Rico Law,
it’s a crime for any person through a pattern of racketeering activity
to acquire or maintain interest in or any type of property or business.
Racketeering activity includes crimes such as drug offenses, homicide, bodily injury,
arson, burglary, and so on.
So, even though Lucci isn’t alleged to be a member of the gang,
prosecutors can argue that he profited from the promotion of gang activity
and therefore can be found guilty of racketeering.
A conviction under the Georgia RICO Act carries a penalty of 5 to 20 years in prison
and/or a fine of up to three times the amount of money gained by the defendant
as a result of the alleged racketeering.
Lucci has a chance of beating the racketeering charge if he has a good lawyer,
but he’ll have to beat the murder charge first.
He’s most likely looking at doing some time in prison given all the charges he’s facing;
the question is whether he’ll be going away for life
or be able to get out in time to continue his rap career.
If he can beat the murder charge or plead it down to a lesser offense,
it will be easier to poke holes in the racketeering case.
But if he’s convicted of participating in a gang-related drive-by shooting
that left one person dead and another critically injured,
the RICO case will only make his sentence worse.
This is a big case,
not only for Lucci, but for hip hop in general.
If police can successfully tie a rapper to a gang,
purely based on music videos and social media posts,
many artists are going to have to rethink how they brand themselves in the future.
This isn’t the first time that prosecutors have used lyrics and social media
as evidence in a case,
but the amount of detail they are putting into their analysis of Lucci’s internet profile
is a new record –
sighting specific music videos, IG captions,
and more to paint Lucci as a powerful drug lord
who used his gang ties to orchestrate a wave of terror from Miami to Atlanta.
Using that logic, nearly any rapper could be painted as El Chapo,
simply because they portray themselves as a powerful drug lord in their music –
which is obviously not the case.
Lucci’s lawyer, Drew Findling said that
“to sit and analyze somebody’s social media account
and try to somehow find evidence of a crime is ridiculous
when people are just really expressing themselves through social media”.
The bright side is that if the prosecutors are basing their case so heavily on internet speculation,
they may not have much solid evidence to prove his gang affiliations.
In that case, Lucci’s lawyer could use the first amendment to claim that the rapper
was just expressing himself artistically and wasn’t involved in any criminal activity.
Lucci will likely be fighting this case for a while
and more information will come to light as the trial continues.
It all comes down to how much evidence the prosecutors have
to link him to actual crimes and gang activity.
Even though the rapper is facing some serious time,
there are many holes in the case that can be exposed by a good team of lawyers.
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