Young Thug and Gunna used to be very good friends and collaborators before 2022 when YSL, Thug’s label and apparent criminal enterprise, was hit with RICO charges. He and several others pled guilty so the criminality is no longer alleged. Gunna is widely believed to have cooperated with officials to get his freedom a bit earlier than his former boss.
Young Thug was released from jail in 2024 he has since thrown jabs at Gunna. That contributed largely to Gunna’s “Rat” allegations on the streets.
Gunna: Before & After Jail
Before he went to jail, Gunna was one of the hottest artists in trap music. Gunna was the right hand man of Young Thug in Young Stoner Records and enjoyed a lot of A-level collaborations with artists like Lil Baby, 21 Savage and others. Even the choice of producers he had were the biggest names out of the trap scene.
Those types of collabs, and so much more have taken a hit since he got out of jail. Gunna’s standing in the Hip-Hop industry has probably taken the biggest hit since he got the rat tag from his colleagues. Gunna has also been criticized by fans with multiple critics saying he’s gotten too repetitive and his last 3 albums sound too much alike. Fans have even suggested that he needs the production expertise of his former collaborators like Wheezy, Turbo, Metro Boomin, and Tay Keith among others.
On his most recent project, The Last Wun, Gunna made a slight pivot with his sound, trying to conquer the Afrobeats scene featuring collaborations with Afrobeats superstars Burna Boy and Wizkid, while also collaborating with upcoming superstar Shalipoppi and C- list Nigerian artist, Teni Apata. The album debuted at #3 on the Billboard charts and moved a respectable 80,000 units in it’s first week. Comparatively, his last album before the arrest, DS4Ever, which featured multiple appearances by Young Thug, as well as verses from Drake, Lil Baby, Future, 21 Savage, G Herbo and more, moved 150k units, and went #1 on the Billboard charts, even outpacing The Weeknd.
Young Thug: Before & After Jail
Young Thug who’s credited as being the god father of trap music has also not achieved relative success since getting out of jail in October 2024. He still maintains a good relationship with all his producers and other names in the trap game but he’s not yet hit the levels he hit before going into jail.
While in jail he dropped an album titled, BUSINESS IS BUSINESS which had people raving but moreso on the fact that he was releasing a body of work in prison and not about the quality of the body of work. In September 2025, he released his long awaited UY SCUTI album, which was very underwhelming by his standards. Fans of Thugger as he’s fondly called have asked for him to cut his beef with Gunna and that the pair make up because they formed a dynamic duo which blessed fans for years.
Thug’s last album before the RICO case was 2021’s Punk, which went #1 on the Billboard charts moving 90k copies. Meanwhile, the aforementioned UY SCUTI moved 52k units and made it’s debut at #6 on the charts, despite features with Cardi B, 21 Savage, YFN Lucci, Lil Baby, Future and Mariah The Scientist among others.
Hip-Hop sales are down across the board, but it’s hard to believe that the Young Thug and Gunna drama has not played a role in both of their lackluster numbers this past year.
Conclusion
Gunna and Young Thug have not achieved as much success as they did when they worked together compared to their present levels, they both sound like they need the spark of each other to ignite something in the trap game again but sadly that does not look like it will be happening any time soon after Young Thug took some recent shots at Gunna. Meanwhile, 21 Savage has publicly pleaded with the 2 rappers to bury the feud.
The careers of both artists have stalled over the past few months with the pair now looking way past their prime.
