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Young Thug Arrested While Christmas Shopping At Atlanta Mall

By Darien Cavanaugh
Published on: 21:21 PST, Dec 23, 2016

Rapper Young Thug was arrested while shopping at an Atlanta mall Thursday night, according to a report from E! News’ Kendall Fisher.

“Young Thug is kicking off the holidays with a bit of legal trouble,” Fisher’s report begins.

It appears that the arrest occurred when police responded to a call about a stolen car being found in the parking lot of the Lennox Square mall. While they were responding to that call, officers decided to do a “walk-through” of the mall to potentially spot or deter any other criminal activity.

During the walk-though, the officers recognized Young Thug, whose real name is Jeffrey Lamar Williams, and arrested him for an outstanding warrant on a failure to appear charge.

Young Thug reportedly had $2,500 in cash on him, Atlanta police told local news station WSB-TV. A family member gave him the money before he was arrested, perhaps to pick up some gifts for them while he was at the mall.

“There were no injuries as a result of this arrest,” WSB-TV quoted a police incident report as saying.

The rapper, known for his songs “Digits” and “Pick Up The Phone,” was booked at the City of Atlanta Department of Corrections and released on $750 bail, according to E! News.

Oddly enough, it was not the first time Young Thug has been arrested in relation to something going down at a mall.

In July of 2015, Young Thug was arrested after an exchange with a security guard at Perimeter Mall in which Young Thug allegedly threatened to shoot the security guard in the face, E! News reports. He fled the mall before police arrived, but a warrant was issued and he was arrested for making “terroristic threats” a week later.

It’s unclear if the warrant Young Thug was picked up for on Thursday is related to that incident or not.

Young Thug began performing in 2011 and quickly made a name for himself with his distinctive style of rapping, though some critics noted that he could be rather uneven at times.

“His latest mixtape, I Came from Nothing 3, is a dense, ambitious attempt to cultivate an entirely new rap style,” David Drake wrote for Pitchfork in 2012. “It is also frequently frustrating, shifting from eye-openingly original to inconsequential from track to track.Unlike Lil B, to whom he might be immediately compared, Young Thug holds onto some traditional frameworks that could give him more of a potential foothold to transcend a cult fanbase.”

Young Thug went on to make a name for himself by performing with several prominent southern hip-hop stars like Birdman,Gucci Mane, Rich Homie Quan,T.I., and Waka Flocka Flame, as well as hip-hop superstars like Nicki Minaj.

He’s released four commercial mix tapes and a studio album, with Bankroll Mafia, since 2015. He’s also been nominated for four BET Awards and BET Hip Hop Awards since 2014.

He’s known almost as much for his unusual sense of style and his personality as he is for his music.

“Young Thug is arguably one of the most unpredictable, charismatic, and outlandish personalities in Hip-Hop today,” Mark Braboy wrote for Vibe in an August profile of the rapper. “Everything from him posing butt naked on his debut album Barter 6, to his infamous statement at the BET Awards years ago declaring that rappers should not talk about social issues, all the way to him posing in his now infamous No, My Name Is Jeffery album cover with in an elegant belle-like dress, solidifies him as a one of a kind character.”

Young Thug threw his fans “for a loop” in an interview with the V-Files that Braboy quotes in the Vibe profile.

“[D]espite what his lyrics may tell you, he’s not really into sex that much,” Braboy wrote.

“We wasn’t doing it on like no it’s too early to have sex sh*t,” Young Thug said in the interview when explaining why he and his fiancée, Jerrika Karlae, didn’t have sex for the first six months of their relationship.

“I don’t care for sex that much. I’ve never actually had sex with her. Never ever. Our first time doin’ grown stuff, she did it. She pulled me to the room and was like ‘come here.'”

Hopefully Young Thug’s latest arrest won’t be too damaging to his career or his relationship. Many other performers have definitely been arrested for worse and continued on with their careers.

[Featured Image by Paras Griffin/Getty Images]

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