Hey, everyone. Anthony Fantano here, Internet's busiest music nerd.

Right now, I would like to do a finalizing part two on a big story that we discussed on the channel last week, and that is essentially the falling out that much of the Internet has had with a rapper, singer, songwriter, Young Thug, due to growing perceptions that he snitched to the police in order to escape conviction and more jail time in the midst of the YSL RICO case.

Now, where we left things off, we had Young Thug launching numerous tweets, defending himself from allegations that he told police anything of substance that would get another person in trouble. And in addition to that, we began to see some leaked jail calls, one in particular where Thug alleged that he had spent thousands of dollars in order to bot a Gunna album to get it to number one on the charts. Which, I mean, it's a shame that admission is coming out in the middle of all of this, because as a result of that, we lose sight over how significant of a piece of information that actually is for the greater music industry, that you have such a huge, massive, major artist admitting to paying money to get an album to the number one spot on the charts.

And if what he said there was actually true, and not just him, hating and talking shit, because obviously, a young thug's feelings toward Gunna are clearly pretty mixed right now, then how many other artists are doing this? How many number one songs and albums are where they are because of fake, botted streams. And if it's this easy for Young Thug to do this, how easy is it for basically anybody else who's two or three times his size in the music industry to do so?

So yeah, pretty big revelations with the last video I did on this. But really, honestly, this was only the tip of the iceberg in terms of what was to come out in the week to follow, because after this, we had day after day after day after day of leaked jail calls where Young Thug was heard talking about a myriad of different people. He was talking about Travis Scott's Astroworld incident, another call where he seemed upset with Andre 3000 for not putting enough artists on.

He also talked about Drake, confirming a very strong rumor that his falling out with Metro Boomin had much to do with him being pushy and demanding beats for new songs. Shortly after Metro's mother had passed away. And one piece of phone call audio that proved to be maybe the most viral featured Young Thug hating on Glorilla, specifically her looks. Shortly after this phone call, dropped, Glorilla took to the internet to say, "This man has been blowing up my phone." So, yeah, truly a lot of embarrassing stuff.

However, I do want to say, watching all of this roll out in the way that it did, it was clear that this audio was not being dropped as much of a diversion from anything, which I initially thought was a possibility when we heard the audio about those Gunna streams. No, this actually reads like a concerted effort to sink Young Thug's brand in some way. And who could possibly be behind it? I'm not entirely sure.

Young Thug even said in an interview we're about to talk about that he and his team approached the county when this audio started coming out, asking if there were records or recordings of these types of phone calls, if they could get access to them or get some confirmation as to where this is coming from. And they were given, from what I understand, no leads.

On some level, the release of this audio does seem to be personal, whether the person putting this out on the internet is doing so because they just hate Young Thug and they want to see him fail, or there's just maybe some personal gain to be made out of it by, I don't know, leaking some of these calls for money. I don't know. I want to stress, it seems like these phone calls are coming out not out of a need for the public to know what is being said in them.

And even though jail and prison calls historically are not exactly 100% private, there is a serious privacy violation going on here in terms of Young Thug and whoever he was talking with on these calls at the time, not really anticipating that whatever they were saying was just going to be leaked to the public.

So again, in the wake of all of these calls dropping, of the snishing allegations, Young Thug has really been struggling to find his footing and figure out how to respond. And him and his team have really failed, in my opinion, to come up with a focused and sensible approach. As a result, it just feels like they're just doing a little bit of everything to see what sticks, as Young Thug has tried to make multiple tweets explaining himself and some of the audio coming out of these calls.

There has been a song and music video that's dropped where he's alleging certain people are rats, taking the focus off of him and putting it onto others when it comes to those sorts of allegations. Most recently, Young Thug has decided to take part in a three-hour interview and conversation with Atlanta rapper, entrepreneur, and actor Big Bank.

For lack of a better term, this conversation was a total roller coaster. But after having looked over it and multiple clips from it multiple times, it feels like that was just by design at the end of the day. Because in the wake of this interview, I've seen so many comments saying, "Oh, this conversation really humanized Young Thug for me. This conversation really made me see things from Young Thug's point of view in terms of why he did what he did and said what he said." And I will say it does seem like Thugger and Big Bank take the time to really go over every single controversial todo that has come up in the wake of all of this, from the trial to the phone calls.

But simultaneously, that doesn't stop the conversation from feeling ultimately like a Gish gallop where you're just being hit with so many opinions and perspectives and what feel like facts from Young Thug's point of view. And you're essentially just steamrolled with them to the point where it's hard to sift through them all and make sense of what's 100% real and what might not totally be true. There's also a claim Young Thug makes in the midst of the conversation that he's made basically no money on Gunna or his music.

"I ain't never make a dollar off Gunna. Ask him. Never. It's my little brother. And I spent millions on that n—. We just were still getting money. I'm still getting money, so I ain't ever tripping. I ain't ever get to the point where I was like, 'damn, I need the money.' I was just still getting money. God was just still blessing me with money. So I ain't even never have a chance to be fucked up and try to get some money from Gunna. I never did that. I always helped him." - Young Thug

And speaking of Gunna, I will say, maybe the most persistent theme throughout the entirety of this conversation is how upset Young Thug is with him and how often he tries again to take the focus off of himself and put it onto Gunna instead, trying to make him a figure to be angry with, upset with. And I think he falls massively short of doing that in a myriad of different ways.

One, while he does argue Gunna was the first person to take a plea, he doesn't make an effective case that Gunna is the reason other pleas were taken after him. Two, he also doesn't make a compelling argument as to why Gunna should have taken the fall for anything. And three, he seems to take severe issue with the fact that when Gunna was eventually released and took his plea deal, that he didn't come out and, I don't know, essentially do what Young Thug is doing right now. Do a bunch of tweets, make an apology tour, explain himself on a podcast or something. Young Thug seems deeply obsessed and upset with Gunna's overall silence.

"Me knowing him. He's smarter than he looked. He let his silence make you think other, make you think other things about him. He's a smart man. He's strategic. I taught him how to be. The thing about it is when it comes down to being real, the strategicness go away from me when it comes to being a man, like standing on man business. A man. I know how to be strategic, but I forget to be strategic when it comes to that. I'm going to say the truth. I'm going to pour it out where it's supposed to be." - Young Thug

I mean, if anything, Gunna being as silent and as productive and focused on his music as he was after that plea, seems to have been the PR answer that could have prevented at least some of the drama we've been seeing over the past few weeks. And then, fourthly, there's a moment where Young Thug does not really get into specifics, but alludes to some personal offense or a moment we're going to step over the line and should have been cut off previous to all of this. Essentially, he's basically painting him as an untrustworthy character before the Riko case even started.

"The crazy part is, bro, he already did some shit. That's a violation. Don't nobody really know about it, but me and Cash XO, my brother. He already done did some shit while I was supposed to cut him off. I just found a new way to love him." - Young Thug

Which, I mean, if that is in fact true, that ultimately paints this as a he tricked you twice type situation.

With all of this focus Young Thug is trying to put on Gunna, it's worth wondering and asking, had he not been rounded up in all of these RICO arrests, would that have changed the trajectory of any of the pleas that were taken in the midst of this case, really? Would that have changed Young Thug having to tell his own brother to take a plea. Would that have changed the nature of any of the phone calls that have leaked, aside from the ones that directly have to do with Gunna?

While I understand there is personal history there between Young Thug and Gunna, it does seem like on some level, Jeffrey has bigger fish to fry. And I mean, to his credit, Gunna did go on to make some pretty successful records for YSL, and for a few years was essentially keeping the label's blood pumping by being the most popular artist on it, aside from Young Thug himself, which, I mean, if that ultimately meant nothing, then I can't imagine why Young Thug would allegedly be investing money in botting his albums.

But there you go. As of right now, it seems like Young Thug is trying to do his best to move on from all of this and just start his next chapter. And while I'm sure the music industry itself, the mechanics itself, are happy to welcome him back with open arms, you have to wonder whether or not any of the calls or allegations surrounding him right now are going to lead to a level of alienation that may even be similar to that of what Gunna experienced after he took his plea deal. And if that is, in fact, the case, will it be as easy for Young Thug to really bounce back with some great records?

I even forgot to mention, one of the calls that leaked actually dealt in Young Thug talking about Future, having some not-so-kind words for him at the time. And one of Young Thug's big drops post-prison was supposed to be this collab album with Future. As of right now, is that essentially put on hold or going to be just thrown into the dust bin? I don't know. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.

But yeah, let me know in the comments what you think about all of this. Hopefully, the storm and the phone calls and everything else has subsided, and we'll just see what the music looks like and sounds like from here.

Anthony Fantano, Young Thug, Forever.