I ask Hamasaki how much social media played a role in Drakeo’s case. “You give me PTSD,” he sighs. “I think we had 4 terabytes of discovery. DMs, photos, videos. Back up accounts on Instagram or Twitter. Anything they can seize electronically now, they do. The problem is, prosecutors can go in and pick out “excerpts here and there to paint a picture. From the defense side, you go in and have to fill in the picture.” Using these excerpts from texts and social media, prosecutors will try to build a story about YSL as a hierarchical criminal organization.
Hamasaki adds that the use of social media as evidence does not only happen in high-profile cases. “Social media is a common tool in the law enforcement toolbox,” he says, adding that police departments are routinely assigned arrest warrants using social media activity. “They want to put it in legal parlance, but they basically say, ‘Here’ – on social media – ‘is evidence of X-crime’. Warrants are being issued on it several times a day, every day.”
The indictment in the Thug and Gunna case is full of damning apparent charges against their 26 co-defendants, including attempted murder of young rapper YFN Lucci and aggravated assault on an elderly statesman, Lil Wayne. There are also charges of possession of cocaine and oxycodone.
If there is evidence of these charges, then Fulton County prosecutors would probably have a robust case against these co-defendants. But the way the alleged crimes are linked to Gunna, aka Sergio Kitchens, and Thug, aka Jeffery Williams, is through content posted online. Again and again the indictment states a version of the following: “Defendant JEFFERY WILLIAMS, an associate of YSL, appeared in a video posted on social media entitled ‘Eww’, in which the defendant pronounces’ Red like Elmo, but never cursed ‘giggle’ … an obvious act to promote the conspiracy. “
I ask Hamasaki if he thought the prosecutors in the Drakeo case made their arguments in good faith. Did they sincerely believe that a song about killing someone was tantamount to admitting guilt? By choosing his words carefully, Hamasaki says, “I struggled to find it credible that they were incapable of separating facts from fiction.”
In cases such as the one made against Thug, Gunna and YSL, the definition of artistic expression becomes a contentious issue. After their arrests, Willis noted that the first amendment is a “precious” American right, but “still does not protect people from prosecutors using it as evidence, if that is the case.” But as Gunna’s lawyer put it“It is intensely problematic that the state relies on lyrics as part of its claims. These lyrics are an artist’s creative expression and not a literal narrative of facts and circumstances.”
Producer JoogSZN was Drakeo’s collaborator and friend. “This is the only art form that is seen as an autobiography rather than as a form of art,” he says. A few months before Drakeo was released from prison, Joog and Drakeo broke out Thank you for using GTL, a critically acclaimed album recorded over the phone via the exquisite Global Tel Link Prison Call Service. Joog spoke to Drakeo daily during his incarceration, and he says their conversations were full of laughter as they fought over the basic infidelity in the prosecution’s case.