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Young Thug Backs Lil Durk Amid Delayed Murder-for-Hire Trial: “Please God”
Young Thug posted support for Lil Durk as the rapper’s federal murder-for-hire trial was delayed to Aug. 20.
With Lil Durk’s federal murder-for-hire trial now pushed to Aug. 20, Young Thug has publicly stepped into the conversation with a blunt show of support. On Wednesday, May 13, the Atlanta rapper posted on X, “Free smurk please god,” a message that landed with particular force coming from someone who has recently lived through his own long stretch behind bars.
That context matters. Young Thug spent more than two years in jail before walking free in October 2024, when Brian Steel, the attorney who led his YSL RICO defense, helped negotiate a plea deal that left Thugger with 15 years of probation and time served. Steel later told Billboard in March that he forms close relationships with clients and their families, describing that kind of defense as a personal investment rather than a detached professional exercise. He has since moved into other high-profile federal matters too, joining Durk’s legal team in March and also appearing on Diddy’s defense team in April, before the Bad Boy mogul was sentenced to 50 months in prison for violating federal prostitution laws.
“Free smurk please god”
Durk’s case has remained one of the more closely watched rap prosecutions of the year. He was arrested in October 2024 after federal agents apprehended him before they believed he was headed to a private flight to Italy. Prosecutors say he plotted to have Quando Rondo killed in connection with a 2022 Los Angeles shooting that left Rondo’s cousin, Lul Pap, dead in the crossfire. They also argue the alleged hit was retaliation for the 2020 killing of King Von, Durk’s frequent collaborator.
The trial had already been set for April before being delayed again, making the new August date another chapter in a case that has already moved slowly through the federal system. Young Thug’s post doesn’t change any of that, but it does underline how quickly the machinery around these cases can become a kind of closed circuit within rap itself. The people, lawyers, names and histories keep overlapping.
As for Thug, he spent last weekend at Rolling Loud Orlando, where he turned up across multiple sets, including Ken Carson’s closing headline performance. It was a reminder that even after his own legal ordeal, he is still very much in the live circuit, visible and moving around the same ecosystem that now has Durk waiting for his own day in court.
