The beef between Young Thug and Gunna isn’t just alive—it’s petty, it’s visible, and it’s playing out in real time. On Wednesday (July 8), while shopping in a New York City boutique, Thug made it abundantly clear there’s no love lost when Gunna’s 2020 track “Dollaz on My Head” started bumping through the speakers. His response was swift and ice: “Next song, sir,” he told a store employee, repeating himself to drive the point home. The song got switched immediately. That’s the kind of move that tells you everything.
It’s been two years since Thug walked free on Halloween 2024, and the man’s still carrying the weight of his former protégé’s December 2022 Alford plea deal like it was yesterday’s beef. Here’s the context: when prosecutors laid a sprawling RICO case on YSL in May 2022, both Thug and Gunna got indicted alongside 26 other affiliates. But Gunna folded first, taking that Alford plea in December 2022 while Thug stayed locked down fighting a battle that would become Georgia’s longest-running criminal trial in history. Thug spent over 900 days behind bars before finally copping a plea on Halloween 2024.
Where Gunna pulled the ripcord early, Thug bled it out. And the culture noticed. In that same December 2022 statement after his plea, Gunna said he was “ending his RICO case” and publicly acknowledging his association with YSL—language that Thug himself has weaponized. In a leaked call with 21 Savage that surfaced later, Thug said point-blank: “He gave the jurors the agreement that it’s a gang… because of Gunna’s plea deal, he was the one who made it a RICO case.” That’s the anger sitting underneath every cold stare, every subtweeted bars, every “Next song, sir.”
The rupture only deepened when Gunna covered up his YSL tattoo in May 2025—removing the mark that used to symbolize his whole identity in the crew. Young Thug saw the gym photos, saw the flames covering where the YSL logo used to be, and dropped a single comment on Instagram: “I mean… he said it must end lol.” A sarcastic, cutting reference to Gunna’s own words about “ending” his ordeal. The message was clear: you wanted out, now live with that choice.
Since Thug’s release, the coldness has been consistent. He’s dropped cryptic social media posts. His close associates—YSL affiliates and label mates—have publicly criticized Gunna. And when Thug released “Money on Money” with Future in May 2025, the bars didn’t leave much to interpretation: “These fk n*as telling for nothing and I got to be the one calling them friend.” The line hit different when everyone knew exactly who it was aimed at.
YSL Records has scrubbed Gunna from its official accounts. Thug’s been banned from Atlanta for ten years as part of his probation conditions—a restriction that keeps him from the city where his label sits, where the culture moves. Gunna, meanwhile, has been free to thrive. His “fukumean” went #4 on the Billboard Hot 100. He’s still making moves. But every move feels like a reminder of what he sacrificed: the brotherhood, the loyalty, the YSL name itself.
This isn’t typical rap beef with diss tracks and call-outs. This is organized institutional silence layered with surgical burns. When a man won’t even listen to your song in a random NYC store, when he repeats his rejection for emphasis—that’s not anger anymore. That’s disrespect. That’s a final answer.
The 16BARS take: The YSL dynasty that dominated rap for a decade is over, and the body’s still warm. Gunna may have saved his freedom, but he lost his family—and Young Thug’s making sure he never forgets it.
