EST Gee is one of the hottest rappers coming out of Louisville, Kentucky.
But while he was blowing up in the rap game,
his crew was allegedly running a drug trafficking ring
distributing meth, coke, and heroin.
Let’s take a closer look at what went down.
Back in September, EST Gee’s Manager, Eric Mosley
was arrested by the FBI after they raided his hotel room on an outstanding warrant.
When they searched the room, they found a kilo of cocaine,
$100,000 cash,
an AK-style pistol, and a stolen handgun.
Mosley was arrested and charged with possession
with intent to distribute a controlled substance,
possession of a firearm in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime,
and possession of a firearm by a prohibited person.
He’s facing a minimum of 10 years up to a max of life in prison if convicted.
Mosley and EST Gee
are both members of Everybody Shine Together LLC,
a business entity they set up to form their music collective EST.
But the arrests ain’t stop with Mosley.
The FBI recently announced
they was arresting nine more people affiliated with the EST collective,
in an operation they called Project Safe Neighborhoods.
During the arrests, police allegedly seized coke,
guns, a stolen car, and 160k in cash.
EST Gee was not arrested or believed to be involved.
But his manager Eric Mosley was named in the indictment,
and so was another one of his business partners, Rico Mosley.
The men arrested are being charged
with the distribution of controlled substances including heroin,
cocaine, fentanyl, and methamphetamine, among other charges.
Police think the EST crew was running a large drug empire
that also caused a wave of violence in Louisville.
Police pointed out that Eric Mosley, and other members of the EST Collective
was responsible for bailing out a man named Kevon Lawless,
who is accused of killing two people.
This included a 21-year-old and a 3-year-old child
who were victims of a drive-by last year.
Lawless was charged with murder last October
and his bond was originally set at $1million.
But the judge reduced it to $300,000
and Lawless got released on house arrest in July 2021.
The checks used to bail out Lawless were under the name
Everybody Shine Together Entertainment.
EST Gee even rapped about Lawless,
who also goes by Lil Kada on the track Sky Dweller where he says
“They want 1 mil for Lil Kada,
know I’m coming to get you Baby
know my heart might get me killed
but it got me here, so risks I’m takin”
So even though Gee was not a part of the indictment,
it’s clear that he’s very close with a lot of the people involved,
including two of his main business partners.
EST Gee’s music career is heating up,
attracting major industry rappers like Jack Harlow and Lil Baby.
But the rapper ain’t have an easy come up.
He grew up in the Newburg neighborhood of Louisville.
His pops was in the streets so he and his siblings was raised by his mom.
Growing up in a hood around a lot of crime and violence,
Gee said he tried being a good kid and focus on sports.
But, the older he got the harder it became to resist the temptations of the streets.
He attended Saint Xavier High School
and was ranked as one of the best linebackers in the state of Kentucky.
He also played basketball and track, but was best known for playing football.
He got a scholarship to Indiana State University, where he majored in communications.
He redshirted the first season there and then played in six games in the 2013 season.
Then he transferred to Sacramento City College
and played his sophomore season there,
where he led the team with 84 tackles.
After a successful season at a junior college,
Gee transferred to another division one school at SFA in Houston.
He was a star player and played in 22 games there.
Now even though he was on his way to potentially playing in the NFL one day,
he was still a broke college student and had to do what he had to do to pay the bills.
So, He started hustling on the side to support himself.
He was living in between Houston and Louisville,
selling weed, while still playing football for SFA.
But in 2016 his double life caught up with him
when he got arrested for 12 pounds of marijuana and a bunch of cash.
He was charged with drug trafficking, which disqualified him from his SFA scholarship.
He was facing up to 10 years in prison and to make matters worse,
he also had a baby on the way.
Gee found a good lawyer
who was able to get the charge dropped down to a class D felony.
He spent four months on house arrest fighting the case
and eventually accepted a plea deal for five years of probation.
But even though he dodged a bullet that time,
the rapper’s dreams of playing in the NFL was over.
Now He was living back in Louisville with a son on the way and unable to find a job.
So, his business in the streets continued.
But Gee said he always saw more for himself
than just flipping drugs which is why he went so hard as an athlete.
Once he accepted the end of his football dreams,
he picked up rapping to give himself another goal to work towards.
He got inspired watching Lil Baby performing live on TV and told himself
if Baby could make it to that level coming from the streets,
then maybe he could make it too.
He was also inspired by hustlers turned rappers like Boosie,
Gucci Mane, and Yo Gotti
and wanted to make genuine street music about the struggle he grew up in.
He set up a home studio in his bathroom and started recording tracks
while still on house arrest.
He originally dropped music under the name Big Gee,
but later changed it to EST Gee after forming the collective Everybody Shines Together.
He dropped his first song, "Stains" in December 2017
and continued to release music consistently on YouTube,
which helped him build a local fanbase.
He got off house arrest in May 2018,
which allowed him to really start making moves and take his career to the next level.
He dropped his first two mixtapes "El Toro" and "Die Bloody" in 2019.
But just because his music career was taking off, ain’t mean he left his old life behind.
In September 2019,
he got shot five times while filming a music video.
He was finishing up a video shoot with Detroit rapper Sada Baby.
As they were leaving the location,
they got ambushed by opps and shot multiple times.
Gee ended up getting hit in the stomach four times and once in his left eye.
His brother was also hit in the leg.
The bullet that hit him in the face ricocheted and then hit him in the eye on the way out.
He had to have a full lens transplant and spent two weeks in the hospital recovering.
But he got back most of his vision after the surgery.
He had to have multiple surgeries on his eye to protect his vision
and also had to get about 50 staples taken out of his stomach.
But for the most part he’s made a full recovery.
for real like I was thinking when I got shot I was like
I'm not no real emotional person or nothing like that you know what I'm saying
but I just had a son
so I was like
Immediately in that moment I was thinking about like damn that ain't fair like my son
classic ***** shit like
they get to grow-
they gon grow without a ***** I thought I was already dead
If that wasn’t bad enough,
not long after the shooting,
Gee’s mom and brother both died in the same week.
In March 2020 Gee’s mother passed away after a long battle with leukemia.
Then a week later, his brother got killed in Louisville after getting shot seven times.
So, within like six months, the rapper almost lost his own life,
then had to mourn the deaths of two of his closest family members.
But all the pain and loss ain’t slow down his hustle and he continued to drop music,
even while he was still recovering.
In January 2021,
he signed a deal with Yo Gotti’s Label CMG, along with Interscope Records.
Later that year, he was featured on Lil Baby’s single "Real As it Gets",
which peaked at #34 on the Billboard Hot 100, which was Gee’s first song to chart.
He was also featured with another popular Louisville rapper
Jack Harlow on the track Route 66.
In an interview with No Jumper,
Gee said that Louisville police even called Jack’s manager
and told him that they needed to keep Jack away from Gee
because he’s a danger to people around him.
But Jack ain’t listen and kept supporting Gee
and they even performed their song together live on Jimmy Kimmel.
In July he dropped his fifth tape Bigger Than Life or Death
which featured artists like Future, Young Thug, Pooh Shiesty, and Lil Durk.
The lead single from the project Lick Back peaked at #89 on Billboard.
So if Gee can remain focused
and stay away from everything that’s gotten his manager and business partners locked up,
he’s in a good position to take over the rap game.
He already got a loyal fanbase and major connections in the industry,
all he has to do is keep his head down and continue making music.
Hopefully, EST has enough cash on deck to hire some good lawyers.
Cause all it takes is one person locked up, to tear down the whole operation.