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      Prosecutors in Chicago Will Drop Abuse Charges Against R. Kelly

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      The musician is already facing decades in prison after being convicted of federal charges, prompting the Cook County state’s attorney to halt her case.Noting that the R&B singer R. Kelly is facing decades in prison after two federal convictions, the top prosecutor in Chicago said on Monday that her office planned to drop its sexual abuse charges against him.The Cook County state’s attorney’s office had been waiting for its turn to bring Mr. Kelly, 56, to trial, which it could not do before the federal court cases in New York and Chicago were brought to a jury.In 2021, Mr. Kelly was convicted on racketeering and sex trafficking charges, for which he was sentenced to 30 years in prison. Last year, he was convicted on sex crimes charges, including coercing minors into sexual activity and producing sex tapes involving a minor. He is scheduled to be sentenced for that conviction next month, which could add decades to the total.“Mr. Kelly is potentially looking at never walking out of prison again for the crimes he’s committed,” Kim Foxx, the Cook County state’s attorney, said at a news conference in which she announced plans to drop the charges. “We believe that justice has been served.”A lawyer for Mr. Kelly, who is mounting appeals in both federal jurisdictions, did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Mr. Kelly is being held in federal prison in Chicago.The charges in Cook County, brought nearly four years ago, were a turning point in Mr. Kelly’s lengthy downfall.After a Chicago Sun-Times report alleging that he abused minors, and a failed prosecution in Chicago in 2008, Mr. Kelly became the focus of renewed scrutiny in the wake of the documentary “Surviving R. Kelly,” which was broadcast in January 2019 and included testimony from several women who accused the singer of abuse dating back to the 1990s.After the documentary aired, Ms. Foxx made a remarkable public request, asking anyone with sexual abuse allegations against Mr. Kelly to come forward.A month later, Mr. Kelly was charged with aggravated criminal sexual abuse involving four victims, three of whom were underage. Mr. Kelly pleaded not guilty to the charges, and he sat down for an infamous television interview with Gayle King of CBS News, in which he screamed, cursed and claimed that he did not do what he was accused of.Ms. Foxx spoke about the case against Mr. Kelly in unusually personal terms: She had been attending a Chicago high school when he was a rising R&B artist in the city, and a sex crimes prosecutor there when Mr. Kelly was tried on child pornography charges in 2008 and ultimately acquitted. Ms. Foxx has also divulged her own accounts of sexual abuse when she was a child.“I know firsthand how difficult it is for you to tell your stories,” Ms. Foxx said on Monday, noting that one of the accusers was disappointed by the decision because she had not yet had her day in court.Others involved in the case had also been involved in Mr. Kelly’s federal trial, in which a jury convicted him on six of 13 charges. The jury found the singer guilty of producing three videos of himself abusing his 14-year-old goddaughter, who took the stand last year after her direct testimony was not part of the 2008 case.Mr. Kelly was acquitted of a charge that he had attempted to obstruct an earlier investigation about his treatment of his goddaughter, among others.Part of the thinking in dropping the charges, Ms. Foxx said, was a desire to focus resources on alleged perpetrators who still walk free. She said the decision was not related to financial calculations or questions about whether the prosecution would be successful.“There are survivors — hundreds of survivors — whose files remain on our desks,” she said. “That was the calculation we made.”Robert Chiarito More

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      Rosalía Issues an English Request, and 9 More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Fever Ray, Chloë, Cécile McLorin Salvant and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.Rosalía, ‘LLYLM’Just before the first chorus of Rosalía’s airy new single “LLYLM,” the Spanish phenom sings, “Lo diré en ingles y me entenderás” — I will say it in English and you will understand me. There’s a brief moment of silence before Rosalía launches into a lilting, pop-radio-friendly hook, sung, yes, in English: “I don’t need honesty, baby, lie like you love me.” In the context of the song, it’s a plea to an uncaring partner, but in the grander scheme of Rosalía’s career, it’s also a playful wink at the idea of an English-speaking crossover hit. The nimble “LLYLM” pivots restlessly between these two worlds, and finds Rosalía — for now at least — having it both ways. LINDSAY ZOLADZFever Ray, ‘Kandy’The eerily alluring “Kandy” is almost a Knife reunion. Though it’s technically by Karin Dreijer’s shapeshifting solo project Fever Ray, it’s one of four songs on the upcoming album “Radical Romantics” that was co-written and co-produced by Karin’s brother and Knife bandmate Olof Dreijer. (It even features the very same synthesizer Olof used on the pulsating “The Captain,” from the Knife’s classic 2006 album “Silent Shout.”) Still, thematically, “Kandy” is of a piece with the other promising glimpses of “Radical Romantics” that Karin has previously offered, at once dark and hypnotically sensual: “After the swim,” the musician sings in a low croon, “she laid me down and whispered, ‘All the girls want kandy.’” ZOLADZClark, ‘Town Crank’Christopher Stephen Clark, the English musician who records as Clark, has built a huge, polymorphous catalog of instrumental music that ranges from stark, austere techno to exquisite chamber-music soundtracks. But he hasn’t sung lead vocals until now — on “Town Crank” from an album due in March, “Sus Dog,” with Thom Yorke of Radiohead as executive producer. “Town Crank” hurtles into motion, starting with dry, jittery acoustic guitar before mustering a full sonic barrage: a relentless electronic bass line, blasts of drums and distortion, orchestral flurries. Clark’s voice turns out to be like Yorke’s, a high, pensive tenor shading into falsetto; he sometimes multitracks it into Beach Boys-like harmonies, while his lyrics offer stray bits of sage advice: “Nothing comes about without a little tweaking.” JON PARELESCécile McLorin Salvant, ‘D’un Feu Secret’Cécile McLorin Salvant, one of her generation’s finest jazz singers, throws a high-concept curveball on her coming album, “Mélusine.” It retells a European folk tale — about love, a curse, broken promises and reptilian transformations — in songs new and old. “D’un Feu Secret” (“Of a Secret Fire”) is indeed old. It was composed in 1660 by Michel Lambert. “I could be cured If I stopped loving/But I prefer the disease,” it vows. McLorin sings it like an early music performer, poised and delicate with feathery ornaments. But the accompaniment, from her longtime keyboardist and collaborator Sullivan Fortner, is on synthesizers, savoring the anachronism. PARELESChlöe, ‘Pray It Away’The Beyoncé protégé Chlöe — of the sisterly R&B duo Chloe x Halle — goes full church girl on the fiery “Pray It Away,” the first single from her upcoming debut album, “In Pieces.” An unfaithful lover brings Chlöe to her knees and makes her wrestle with cravings for vengeance but, as she puts it in breathy vocals stacked to heaven, “I’ma just pray it away before I give him what he deserves first.” ZOLADZASAP Rocky, ‘Same Problems?’ASAP Rocky mourns the many rappers who have died young by questioning himself: “Am I a product of things that I saw?” he sings. “Am I a product of things in my songs?” His self-produced track is a haunted waltz, seesawing between two perpetually unresolved chords, with ASAP Rocky’s doleful voice cradled and answered by vocal harmonies from Miguel. “How many problems get solved if we don’t get involved?” he wonders. PARELESKimbra featuring Ryan Lott, ‘Foolish Thinking’Kimbra, a singer and songwriter from New Zealand, had her global triumph in 2011 as the duet partner (and comeuppance) for Gotye in “Somebody That I Used to Know,” which won the Grammy for record of the year. Since then, she has persevered with her own kind of electronic pop, and in “Foolish Thinking” she collaborates with Ryan Lott, a.k.a. Son Lux. It’s a clear pop structure with an eerie refrain — “thought I could remove the pain/but that’s my foolish thinking” — delivered in an echoey, shadowy production, full of furtive keyboard patterns and variously miked vocals, sketching the longings of a partner who’s loyal but utterly confounded. PARELESRickie Lee Jones, ‘Just in Time’Rickie Lee Jones takes on jazz standards on “Pieces of Treasure,” an album due April 28. Her version of “Just in Time” by Betty Comden, Adolph Green and Jule Styne, a song about last-chance romance — “The losing dice were tossed/My bridges all were crossed” — is simultaneously thankful and teasing. With Mike Mainieri’s vibraphone scampering around her voice, Jones places her phrases slyly behind the beat, pausing to land each note just in time. PARELESJobi Riccio, ‘For Me It’s You’“Everyone has a person they sing their love songs to,” Jobi Riccio sings in “For Me It’s You,” a slow, terse, old-fashioned country waltz complete with a plaintive fiddle. It just gets torchier as that love goes unrequited. PARELESSamia, ‘Breathing Song’Deep trauma courses through Samia’s “Breathing Song,” from her new EP, “Honey.” Over stark, sustained keyboard chords, she sings “Straight to the ER/While I bled on your car”; the driver asks, “It wasn’t mine, right?” The chorus, sharpened by Auto-Tune, is “No, no, no” — it’s simultaneously denial, reassurance and proof of life. PARELES More

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      In Chicago, ‘Opera Can Be Hip-Hop, and Hip-Hop Can Be Opera’

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      The baritone Will Liverman was singing in Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” about five years ago when he watched a documentary about Jonathan Larson and his musical “Rent.”“It talked about how ‘Rent’ came to be, and how this guy had the idea of taking ‘La Bohème’ and updating it,” Liverman said in an interview this month. “I was wondering why more classics aren’t updated — taking them for ourselves and spinning a new narrative that reclaims the story and tells something that’s meaningful for us.”Then he visited a Black barbershop, and an idea hit him: This could be the setting for a new take on the Rossini, like “La Bohème,” one of the most beloved operas in the repertory. “The thing is,” Liverman said, “I didn’t really take agency over writing anything because of feeling like I was just a singer. I was like, man, someone should do this.”The years since have proven that Liverman isn’t just a singer. An enterprising artist on the rise, he has not only become a fixture of contemporary works at the Metropolitan Opera, including a star turn in Terence Blanchard’s “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” last season, but also shepherded new commissions. And now, with his old friend DJ King Rico, he has taken on composing as well.Together they have updated “Barber,” loosely adapting its story into one about a barbershop on the South Side of Chicago and blending operatic writing with a kaleidoscope of styles like R&B, funk, hip-hop, gospel, rap and, of course, barbershop quartet. Rajendra Ramoon Maharaj joined them, collaborating on the show’s book and becoming its dramaturg and director. The result, “The Factotum” — its title recalls the famous Rossini aria “Largo al factotum” — opens Feb. 3 at Lyric Opera of Chicago.Liverman, 34, and DJ King Rico, 33, met as teenagers at the Governor’s School for the Arts in Virginia. There, they found a mentor in Robert Brown, a teacher with a gospel background who taught them, young Black men, what place they could have in a world like opera, and how free the art form could be.“We had someone to look up to that looked like us, that taught us what opera was but also could get on the keys and play the craziest rendition of anything you ever heard,” Liverman said. “That’s what really sparked it all, before we even knew what was inside of us. He instilled that.”On the bus, the pair would hold court, singing songs like Lil Jon and the East Side Boyz’s “Get Low” in classical voices. “The girls would go crazy,” DJ King Rico said; but more important, the playfulness taught him “that opera can be hip-hop, and hip-hop can be opera. It’s the same notes.”In a joint video interview, Liverman and DJ King Rico talked about writing “The Factotum,” and the place it might come to have in the opera world. Here are edited excerpts from the conversation.“The possibilities just seemed endless,” Liverman said about composing an opera.Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesComposing opera is new for both of you. How has it felt to be working in this mode?DJ KING RICO When Will hit me up about this, that was the farthest thing from my mind. I sang opera in high school; I did it for two years. That was really cool, but then I went the other route. So, when he came back, what immediately started playing in my mind was like, OK, we’re going to make this us. It’s going to be really, really authentic.WILL LIVERMAN The exciting thing was, the possibilities just seemed endless. There was a lot of trial and error — figuring out how the operatic voice can serve these styles we know and love. We were in the studio; we’d record something and listen back to it a bunch of times and really pinpoint what things were working and what things we could fix.DJ KING RICO For me, it’s been cool to play various roles. That’s what the factotum is — a jack-of-all-trades. Having to master a lot of different things throughout this process: writing the music, recording, engineering. Whatever helps the process move along, just removing the ego, and that has been transformational.There’s an added layer here, Will, of writing for yourself in the role of Mike.LIVERMAN It’s been a big discovery, because we’re also both the composers and librettists. I loved writing parodies back in the day; if TikTok was a thing in my 20s, I’d be all over that. But now, we noticed there are certain words that just sound so corny if you try to sing them operatically, like “That’s so dope.” And in these styles, you have to keep space for the operatic voice to feel natural.There were some things that I sing for my part that I had to rewrite because it’s like, Oh man, I need to actually breathe here, or do that. On the creating side, you also start thinking about vowels and certain words that speak better.Given how broad the range of styles is in this opera, how did you arrive at what sounded right for any given moment?DJ KING RICO I don’t think we ever arrived at what felt right completely until Rajendra came onboard. He helped complete the story line, and even now, in rehearsals we’re still fine-tuning. But as far as whether to use hip-hop or gospel or whatever — I think it’s more so the emotion that we want the audience to feel and what supports that.We used to play this Basquiat clip where he was like, “Black people are not represented in these spaces.” But we do exist here, and so we are being very intentional about being ourselves in this space. So, there’s this one song, “Conversation,” where it has all of the genres mixed up into one so you see all of the personalities of the different characters in the barbershop. We wanted it to feel a little bit chaotic, and authentic.About the barbershop. In Rajendra’s director’s note, he compares that space to the theater, as a gathering place. What did that idea open up for you in the opera’s story?LIVERMAN One of the cool things about going into a barbershop is, you never know who’s going to come in. Everybody needs to get their hair cut, from the gangster to the preacher to the teacher. It’s a safe space for us to really be and speak our truths. It’s so much more than a haircut. My hair was a mess about a month ago; I was looking like Moses in “The Ten Commandments.” But I go to my guy in Chicago, and I just listen in on the conversations — the openness, the honesty, the funny things, the joy. Then, at the end of it, I come out a new person. I feel like art has the power to do that.DJ KING RICO They definitely both provide community. And a work like this allows multiple people to come together. If you’ve seen the things in this story and been impacted by them, probably someone next to you has experienced the same thing. So, you can come together and feel joy in that.DJ King Rico at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. “Opera can be fun!” he said. “There’s room for everything.”Lawrence Agyei for The New York TimesThe Met Opera recently said, in something of a reversal, that contemporary works have become box office draws — including, Will, the sold-out run of “Fire Shut Up in My Bones” that you were in. Not only were those seats full, but the audience was also visibly different. Do you see “The Factotum” aiming for something similar?DJ KING RICO Opera can be fun! There’s room for everything. And so if we’re going to put something like this on on a Friday, let’s make this a thing, a vibe. Let’s experience the art and then kick it after. There’s a renaissance that happening, and I’m just thankful that we’re a part of it. Because opera changed my life as a 14-year-old kid studying those scores. I feel like if we can continue to expand it and expand the audience, it can continue to do the same thing going forward for future generations.LIVERMAN I hope other artists look at this and see that anything’s possible. When you have a dream or that feeling, that inner voice saying “Do this,” do it. Like Rico said, one of the ways we think of the factotum is being a jack-of-all-trades. We put this together ourselves over a number of years, and I want it to be an inspiration for other artists to step outside a box that says “I have to just be in this one lane.”Then there are young kids of color. But there are also young kids period, and older people. I want this to be a story of humanity, like Rico said, coming together. You see so much of the sad mask in opera, but I think there’s something to be said, just as powerful, about joy and happiness. We need those stories, but we also need some of the things that make the heart feel good. More

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      At Rennie Harris’s Hip-Hop University, Teaching the Teachers

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      On a Friday morning in December the hip-hop choreographer Rennie Harris was in Boulder, Colo., teaching a master class. Rather than taking a post at the front of the studio and staying there, Harris moved among the students, weaving his way through the room and dancing along with them. He offered a few critiques, but more often he paused to share stories and historical tidbits, illuminating the lineage and theory behind the movements he was teaching.But this was more than just a master class. It was one of the final sessions in a yearlong program to train and certify hip-hop and street dance teachers. A few days later, most of these students became members of the first graduating class at the newly minted Rennie Harris University.Over the course of his decades-long career, Harris, who turns 59 this week, has been a guiding force, ushering hip-hop and street dance into new spaces and championing their history and legacy. He is perhaps most widely known for bringing these styles to the concert stage with his Philadelphia-based company Rennie Harris Puremovement. (The company will present its signature work, “Rome & Jewels,” a retelling of “Romeo and Juliet,” at the Joyce Theater in New York in February.) Rennie Harris University builds on the principles that have shaped its founder’s career, bringing them into the classroom.“No one’s teaching how to teach hip-hop, everyone’s just teaching people how to do it,” said Harris, here in Boulder for his program’s winter cypher session.Stephen Speranza“What’s special, I think, about the curriculum is the pedagogy piece,” Harris said in an interview. “Because no one’s teaching how to teach hip-hop, everyone’s just teaching people how to do it. It’s the assumption that because you can do it, then you can teach it, but everybody doesn’t know how to teach it.”Hip-hop teaching, he said, often focuses largely on learning choreography. Rennie Harris University aims to broaden the scope by giving educators a working knowledge not only of hip-hop technique, but also of its origins and culture. And because hip-hop and other street styles have historically been overlooked in academic settings that teach dance, a program like this one could help place qualified instructors in institutions where these styles have not been offered or prioritized.Farrah McAdam, a member of the first graduating class, said there were additional benefits: “I think this program helps quote, legitimize hip-hop, even though it’s legit as is, right? But we know in education or academic spaces, ballet and modern are seen as a higher priority or a higher foundation of dance than hip-hop or other cultural forms.”In dance programs across the United States, classical ballet and modern are typically part of the core curriculum, while genres like tap, hip-hop and other street styles are often offered as electives — if at all. And while faculty members, dancers and choreographers have grown more vocal about the need for change — especially after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020, which brought renewed attention to racial bias in the arts — it has been slow in coming.Farrah McAdam and Tyreis Hunte in B-boy KO’s Popping Combo class in Boulder.Stephen SperanzaFor D. Sabela Grimes, a multidisciplinary artist and associate professor of practice at the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at the University of Southern California, this phenomenon is part of what he calls the “ballet industrial complex.” Ballet, “at least in the American context, has created pathways for people to have careers as performers,” he said, “and then go into higher education.” But, he added, that has not been the case for hip-hop and street dance teachers.Grimes, an original “Rome & Jewels” cast member, said he was hopeful about the change he is seeing on an institutional level — and that programs like Harris’s would help with the momentum.“I think the program will be a resource,” he said, but “what I have learned working in higher education is that we’re going to need more. Times are changing, which is beautiful, but these institutions don’t move at the same pace that hip-hop culture in a really general sense moves and popular culture also moves.”Harris’s program may be the first of its kind at this level, but similar ones are in the works. Last fall, the British dance company ZooNation rolled out a slate of courses to train hip-hop teachers. And Moncell Durden, a dance scholar, hip-hop figure and a former member of Rennie Harris Puremovement, is developing a teacher certification program in Black American dance as part of his organization, Intangible Roots. It’s slated to begin in the fall, online and with in-person sessions in Los Angeles.The seeds for Rennie Harris University were planted more than 20 years ago, when Harris started Illadelph Legends, a dance festival that gathered hip-hop and street dance pioneers to teach classes and discuss the culture and the history of the forms. Harris said that Durden, who was also involved with the festival, had proposed a partnership with Unesco to create a certification program that would explore hip-hop as a form of traditional folklore. The idea didn’t come to fruition, Harris said, but he couldn’t get it out of his head.Harris presiding at the dance battle at the cypher session in Boulder.Stephen SperanzaHe got to work mining his connections across the dance world, he said, and “called some in favors.” Rennie Harris University welcomed its first pool of applicants in early 2021.The program is structured to allow students to take technique classes locally, with a list of qualified instructors near their homes provided by the school; students also meet virtually to take a rotating slate of courses online. Sessions cover hip-hop and street dance-specific injury prevention, pedagogy, theory and history; Harris’s contribution, a series called The Day Before Hip-Hop, traces the roots of the form back to the period of American slavery. The courses are taught by renowned dance scholars including Ayo Walker, Thomas DeFrantz, Charmaine Warren and Brenda Dixon-Gottschild, and hip-hop and street dance practitioners like Buddha Stretch, Pop Master Fabel and B-boy YNOT.“Most people think that dance is just dance,” said Stephanie Sanchez, a graduate of Rennie Harris University. “And it’s not, it’s so much more than that — it’s research, development, where this move comes from. And that’s exactly what Rennie is doing with this program.”On top of their course load, students attend multiday intensives called cypher sessions, with in-person dance classes and lectures. On the roster for the winter session, held in Boulder in December, were classes like Wake & Break, Tops & Rocks, Popping Combo and Can U Freestyle. (The spring session is in Miami; tuition covers the classes but students pay separate fees for travel, room and board.) The cypher sessions, named for an important hip-hop practice in which dancers (or rappers) gather to perform and cheer one another on — usually in a circle, taking turns in the center — bring students together in a community, a vital part of the Rennie Harris University experience and of hip-hop culture more broadly.To earn their certificates, students are required to pass an extensive slate of assessments. These include teaching a mock class, taking a written test and participating in the cypher-end dance battle, which welcomes dancers from the area and offers a $3,000 grand prize.Warming up before the dance battle.Stephen SperanzaPreparing to pull out their most impressive stunts, the students at the cypher session in December may have been feeling the pressure on the evening of the battle. But a strong sense of unity was the prevailing note. As the judges paused the competition to deliberate after the first round, the competitors fell into a cypher, dancing for — and with — one another as if they’d been dancing together for years.Many Rennie Harris University graduates have taken on Harris’s sense of mission. Tyreis Hunte, a senior at St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minn., said they hoped to bring hip-hop and street dance into the academy in a deeper way, “to educate communities about the history and the integrity of street dance and street culture.”Some are already teaching dance, like McAdam, who works at Sonoma State University in California. She said her experience at Rennie Harris University had deepened her relationship to hip-hop. That it is not only about her teaching, she said, “but also just showing up to jams and battles and spaces, or opening doors for other people to come into the teaching space that might not usually have the access.”For Harris, too, the program is about opening doors. It’s an opportunity to share his knowledge, and also to widen hip-hop and street dance’s circle of influence and help reshape priorities.At Rennie Harris University, where the second cohort has already started classes, “we’re flipping the script,” he said. “Hip-hop dance is first. House dance is first. Street dance is first — that’s the focus, right? Anything else is secondary.” More

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      The Beatbox House to Travel Abroad for the State Dept. 

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      The trip will mark the first time that the government officially recognizes the genre in its American Music Abroad program.Members of the Beatbox House, a group of five vocal percussive artists from Brooklyn, will follow in the footsteps of American music legends Dizzy Gillespie and Louis Armstrong when they travel abroad later this month to serve as cultural ambassadors for the United States.Chris Celiz, Gene Shinozaki, Amit Bhowmick, Kenny Urban, and Neil Meadows (better known as NaPoM), all beatboxing champions, will visit Indonesia and Singapore with the State Department for three weeks of beatbox competitions, workshops and collaborations with local musicians as part of American Music Abroad, an outreach program sponsored by the department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs.The Beatbox House, a group that has tens of thousands of fans, creates drum and instrument sounds with accented speech, distorted singing and lip oscillations. The music covers many genres, including hip-hop, EDM, grime, trap and rock. The group is also known for its popular cover of the Rednex song “Cotton Eye Joe.”Members of the Beatbox House have won competitions individually, in pairs and as a group, and they are active in music education efforts around New York City. In the group’s workshops, students are introduced to basic beatbox sounds, as well as to the endless possibilities that the human voice offers for musical expression. Now, the group has the chance to share the same lessons abroad.Known for holding inclusive, community-oriented competitions — known as battles — around the city, the Beatbox House has an itinerary that will include visits to plenty of community centers abroad. Alison Bassi, a cultural affairs officer for the U.S. Embassy in Singapore, hopes that the locations beyond bars and concert halls will make the music “accessible to lots of different people and a slightly different audience,” not just beatbox devotees.Dancers recently performed in a collaboration with members of the Beatbox House at the Guggenheim Museum.Jordan Macy for The New York TimesOriginally one of the five pillars of hip-hop, beatbox made its way to Europe in the late 1980s by way of American soldiers. Since then, the appetite for the art form in Europe and Asia has grown. The international beatbox community now numbers in the millions, with Asia representing many of the recent gains in support and participation. For the State Department, sending the Beatbox House musicians abroad — the first time it will recognize the musical genre in the cultural program — presents an opportunity to share an art form that is both specifically American and quite popular overseas.“We depend upon our American artists to join in our country’s diplomacy,” Lee Satterfield, the assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs, wrote in an email. In recent years, this mission has led American Music Abroad to partner with fewer chart-topping artists and more mission-driven performers like the Beatbox House, a shift that reflects what Mr. Satterfield said was the department’s goal to “expand the reach of music diplomacy.”Of course, security issues, on a smaller and more intimate scale, might crop up in Indonesia, where the group is already popular. “They love us out there,” Mr. Shinozaki said. Last time some of its members performed in the country, he said, they had to be escorted out of the venue.Mr. Shinozaki, Mr. Celiz and Mr. Bhowmick are all first-generation Americans whose families came from Japan, the Philippines and Bangladesh, respectively. For the five band members, performing an American style of music, in a diverse group, sums up the spirit of hip-hop, the spirit of democracy and the best of what this country has to offer.“My parents wanted the American dream,” Mr. Celiz said. “I feel like I’m getting to live it. But we’re also redefining what that means. This is our version of it.”Mike Quinlan, the spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Indonesia, wrote in an email that the Beatbox House was the Embassy’s “top choice” for the visiting artists program.“They have a good amount of people who are very excited about them being here,” Mr. Quinlan said, adding that “the Beatbox House is a living example” of the diversity of the United States, and of its music.Mr. Shinozaki, left, and Chris Celiz in their show, “The Missing Element.”Jordan Macy for The New York TimesSome Beatbox House members have experience in the region already, like Mr. Shinozaki in Indonesia. And four years ago, Mr. Bhowmick, Mr. Meadows and Mr. Shinozaki performed in Bangladesh, enjoying a warm reception, especially Mr. Bhowmick.“They look up to me,” he said of his fans in Bangladesh. “I’m a Bengali kid who changed his parents’ minds and broke the conventional path. So when we went there, the crowd was just amazing.” The trip with American Music Abroad, he said, “is going to be very similar in that way, if not even crazier.”Ms. Bassi pointed out that the biggest beatbox battle in Singapore is typically held in December. But when the organizers of the competition learned that the members of the Beatbox House would be in the country in February, they delayed the competition until then “to bring a bigger audience,” she said.After visiting Singapore, the group will continue its tour in the Philippines and Japan, doing the same community building, on their own time, that they are doing with the government program, simply because it matters to them. This will be the first trip to Asia that will involve all five members of the group, so they want to make it last as long as possible.Mr. Urban summed up the mood on behalf of the group, saying he was “just excited to be with my squad” and to “tour the world.”In addition to performing, the Beatbox House is dedicated to community outreach. Jordan Macy for The New York Times More

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      Ice Spice, Hip-Hop’s New Princess, Is Just Warming Up

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      Last year, the Bronx rapper emerged from the drill scene with a pop-friendly sound, and attracted the attention of Drake. Now she’s releasing her first EP.On a cold, damp afternoon earlier this month, Ice Spice didn’t want to be recognized, so she covered her signature bounty of red curls with a wig of long blonde tresses, and wrapped that wig in a pink scarf. After a quick stop at her dentist in Bushwick to get her veneers adjusted, the rising hip-hop star hopped in a black SUV to head up to the area around Fordham Road in the Bronx where she grew up.At first, she was muted on the ride, pulling a makeup case out of a pink Von Dutch bag and applying foundation, mascara and lip liner while playing a string of sentimental songs by the Atlanta R&B singer Mariah the Scientist from her phone through the car’s stereo.But by the time the SUV crossed over into the Bronx, Ice Spice — wearing a black Prada fleece, black Balenciaga tights and black Uggs, her long nails painted in an exaggerated French manicure — had livened up, playing her latest single, “In Ha Mood,” on repeat, and rapping along with quiet force:“Oh, they mad ’cause I keep making bops/Oh, she mad ’cause I’m taking her spot/If I was bitches, I’d hate me a lot.”These are the sort of coolly but directly confident verses that have made Ice Spice, 23, one of the most signature voices in New York drill music, as well as an emerging pop culture touchstone, beloved both for what she says and how she comes off while saying it.“I’m just naturally super chill and nonchalant about a lot of things,” she said. “I’ve always been that way, since I was a baby.”On Friday, she’ll release her first EP, “Like..?,” which gathers her previous singles with some new songs, all of which feel of a piece. While the sound of the Bronx drill scene she emerged from is often unrelenting and harsh, the style of her EP, she said, is “pop drill” — spacious, up-tempo and a little skittish, with careful use of melody and just the right amount of punch.“I was getting a lot of hate when I first put out my anything — content, music, whatever,” Ice Spice said, but added, “hate could take you a long way.”Luisa Opalesky for The New York TimesUnlike many New York drill rappers, who tend toward the antic, Ice Spice raps with equanimity: calm, controlled and almost reticent, letting each line linger ever so slightly, almost as if to draw you to her before she again pushes you away.“She makes this thing we call sexy drill,” said Nicole Racine, founder of Talk of the Town, a media company that documents New York drill music. “Her being sexy, being feminine, not the rah-rah drill that we expect.”Just a few months ago, Ice Spice didn’t need to hide behind decoy wigs, but that changed during one hectic week in August. First, Drake expressed admiration for her music — she posted a screenshot of his message — and then flew her along with her manager and producer, RIOTUSA (who goes by Riot), on a private jet to his annual festival in Toronto, OVO Fest.“I probably had like $200 to my name on that trip,” Riot said, chiming in from the back seat of the SUV. “It kind of felt like the flight was like me flying into a new life.”Ice Spice said she was “mad broke” at the time, laughing as she remembered the “fake-ass purse” she was carrying.A few days after the event, she released “Munch (Feelin’ U),” the song that would become her true breakout, inaugurate a delicious new piece of slang and establish her signature visual identity: golden curls, bold outfits, intense eye contact.“We slept on that record because that was the only song we had that didn’t have a sample,” said Riot, whose father is DJ Enuff, an influential New York radio figure. At the time, the dominant sound of New York drill relied on familiar samples; earlier, they’d released “No Clarity,” based heavily on Zedd’s decade-old trance-pop hit “Clarity.”But the originality of “Munch” turned out to be a blessing — a hit reliant upon an older hit can feel contingent, saying less about the new artist than about the durability of the older one. “I’m happy the first song that ever really blew up for me like that was an original song, with an original word,” Ice Spice said. “I’m just so proud of that.”The response, fueled by social media, was instant. “I remember the week ‘Munch’ came out, I had went to the mall, right?” Ice Spice said, characteristically unperturbed. “And a bunch of kids started running up to me like, ‘Yo, are you the “Munch” girl?’ And like, taking pictures of me and recording me.”Before stopping at New Capitol diner for an M&M cookie, she popped by St. James Park, where the “Munch” video was filmed, hoping to use the bathroom — it was locked — and quipped, “They should name it Munch Park.”Ice Spice’s 2022 track “Munch (Feelin’ U)” became her breakout and established her signature visual identity.In the wake of the success of “Munch,” Ice Spice signed to 10K Projects/Capitol Records, and had her first taste of financial success — “I got 2 milli for using a mic,” she posted online at one point. But riding down the blocks where she grew up, making the trip back for the first time since handing out Thanksgiving turkeys alongside fellow Bronx rapper Lil Tjay, she expressed a little exhaustion. “People won’t ask you directly, like, ‘Hey, can you buy me a house?’ I mean, they will actually,” she said. But she was even more frustrated about the things she couldn’t yet do: “It’s just weird now being at a certain place and not being able to just help everybody that you want to help.”Born Isis Gaston to a Black father and a Dominican mother who divorced when she was still a toddler, Ice Spice has five younger half siblings. She’d written poetry and raps since childhood, and her father routinely encouraged her to freestyle with him. (“We would be walking to school and he would be trying to get me to rap about my day,” she recalled.) She didn’t begin writing full songs until 2019, inspired by the breakout wave of Brooklyn drill rappers that included Sheff G and Pop Smoke, and didn’t record any of them until 2021, after a video of her doing the #BussItChallenge gained traction and she had a brief flirtation with extreme virality.“Once that happened I was like, Oh, if I could do it one time, I’m pretty sure I could do it again,” she said. “That’s when I knew I could be an artist.” Sensing an opportunity, she rushed to complete her first song: the squelchy, tough-talking, Brooklyn drill-esque “Bully Freestyle.” She began recording more tracks, and documenting the process, eventually releasing promo trailers for each to gin up attention and enthusiasm.All of her released songs so far have been produced by Riot (born Ephrem Lopez Jr.). The two met when they were both studying communications at SUNY Purchase, where Ice Spice also played volleyball, as she did at the Catholic high school she attended in the Bronx.They found a common language in drill songs that didn’t shy away from the personal, and that were lyrically emphatic, line by line. “I like to hear catchy stuff and I always be thinking like, Damn, what should I caption this? So I just started coming up with mad captions,” she said. She also found that writing personal stories came naturally. “There’s like this type of therapy to it,” she said. “It’s just like a relief whenever I complete a song.”Before “Munch,” attention came in fits and starts, not all of it positive. “I was getting a lot of hate when I first put out my anything — content, music, whatever,” she said, but added, like a sophisticated child of the internet, “hate could take you a long way.”Even now, she’s still something of a lightning rod. Because social media spins tizzys from even the barest scraps of information, there was prurient interest after Drake unfollowed her on Instagram after the Toronto trip. “We’re cool,” she said. “We spoke after that a couple times and we’re good. There’s no beef.” When she was being roasted for her lackluster performance at Rolling Loud in September, her first festival appearance, she “was just happy they were talking about me, really.”But she has benefited greatly from the online attention, too. Her fandom is still settling on a name: Spice Cabinet? Spice Rack? Spice Cadets? Munchkins? And she has seamlessly been absorbed into the meme universe — split portraits of her alongside Tupac, XXXTentacion, Martin Luther King Jr. and Princess Diana float around the internet, and her lyrics (“How can I lose if I’m already chose?”) pop up in tweets and captions. She decided to record “Princess Diana,” from her new EP, after seeing memes flying around the internet late last year calling her this generation’s Princess Diana.“I like to hear catchy stuff and I always be thinking like, Damn, what should I caption this? So I just started coming up with mad captions,” Ice Spice said of her writing style.Luisa Opalesky for The New York Times“Who don’t wanna be a princess?” she said quietly, as if acknowledging something that she’d already known for a while, and assumed everyone else did, too.In perhaps the ultimate indication of pop culture absorption, Lil Nas X, the effortless channeler of virality, dressed as her in the “Munch” video for Halloween, sporting a neon tank top and a wild wig.“The hair is definitely iconic,” she conceded. “When I was in high school, I was straightening my hair, trying to be something that I’m not. Now it’s flattering seeing a wave of Afros. I enjoy that. I feel like that’s great for Black women especially, making Afros more like just a normal staple look, you know?”Racine, of Talk of the Town, said, “She’ll make the sexy drill mainstream, she’s just gonna open more doors.” But drill, the aesthetic that has delivered Ice Spice’s first dose of fame, may only be a convenient way station.“She’s a pop star,” Riot said. “People say drill just to box people in.”Ice Spice agreed that her aspirations stretch beyond that sound. “For me personally, I think I have passed that,” she said. “I do want to be a mainstream artist. I want diamond records and plaques and Grammys. So I think in order to get that, you do have to surpass just one subgenre.”Back in the car, she scrolled through new music, both from the EP, and a verse she recorded for a remix of PinkPantheress’s “Boy’s a Liar,” which has a similar tempo to her own songs but a completely different texture. It’s her first adventure out into the world beyond drill but unlikely to be her last.“I’ve tried Detroit beats. I’ve tried trap. I’ve tried hyperpop,” she said. She speaks Spanish, and has been chatting with the Dominican rapper Tokischa about possibly working together.On her way home from the Bronx, she stopped at a mall in Elizabeth, N.J., so she and Riot could buy True Religion jeans for an upcoming video shoot, which would take its visual cues from the early 2010s, perhaps the last era, pre-drill, in which New York rap truly spurred national conversation. On the way, they dove into a conversation about whether New York, the birthplace of hip-hop, could ever truly fall off.“I just feel like there’s never been a moment where it was dead,” she said. “You can name a year and I can say an artist from New York that was popping, lit, that year. We was singing them songs in the parties.”For maybe the first time all day, she betrayed just the slightest bit of agitation: “Like, I would be mad if one day somebody refers to 2022 as when New York fell off when it’s like, ‘Hello, I’m here.’” More

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      Indie-Rock Supergroup boygenius Returns, and More New Songs

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      Hear tracks by Kim Petras, Yaeji, Arlo Parks and others.Every Friday, pop critics for The New York Times weigh in on the week’s most notable new songs and videos. Just want the music? Listen to the Playlist on Spotify here (or find our profile: nytimes). Like what you hear? Let us know at theplaylist@nytimes.com and sign up for our Louder newsletter, a once-a-week blast of our pop music coverage.boygenius, ‘$20’The indie-rock supergroup boygenius — featuring Phoebe Bridgers, Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker — never promised to be anything more than a one-off side project when it released an excellent six-song EP in 2018. But this week, the group returned with the promise of a full album and three new songs that prove that EP wasn’t a fluke. The poignant, Bridgers-led “Emily I’m Sorry” is a compassionate folk-rock portrait of a relationship on the brink of collapse, while Dacus steers the ship on the heartening “True Blue,” a vivid snapshot of a love that’s going stronger than ever. (“It feels good to be known so well,” Dacus sings. “I can’t hide from you like I hide from myself.”) The revelation, though, is “$20,” a chugging rocker that finds the band kicking into a whole new gear, and allows Baker to inhabit a swaggering persona. “It’s a bad idea and I’m all about it,” she sings, sketching a scene full of indelible images (“It’s an all night drive from your house to Reno, to the T-Bird graveyard where we play with fire”). Halfway through, “$20” takes a thrilling turn when all three members of the band start singing different refrains in a round: Their voices converge and collide before the song erupts in a conflagration of primal screams — playing with fire, indeed.Fenne Lily, ‘Lights Light Up’On “Lights Light Up,” from the forthcoming album “Big Picture,” the English singer-songwriter Fenne Lily’s smooth, arpeggiated guitar playing has the fluidity of a babbling brook, and her murmured vocals flow with a similar kind of serenity. An undercurrent of melancholy and loss emerges from her lyrics, though, which chronicle a gradual acceptance of loss: “You didn’t listen when I told you I’m no dancer,” she sings, “now I dance alone all the time.”Yaeji, ‘For Granted’The New York-based musician and producer Yaeji has released two acclaimed house-inspired EPs and an impressionistic 2020 mixtape, but on April 7 she’ll finally put out her first full-length album, “With a Hammer.” The debut single, the shape-shifting “For Granted,” is certainly promising — a playful, sing-songy synth-pop track that, halfway through, explodes into skittish euphoria. “When I think about it, I don’t even know,” she croons dreamily, before letting her concerns go: “So I stop the thinking, let it rest and I’ll flow.”Arlo Parks, ‘Weightless’Arlo Parks works through indecision on the driving “Weightless,” the first single from her second album “My Soft Machine.” “I don’t wanna wait for you,” the young British artist sings on the chorus, “but I need you so I won’t go.” With its persistent beat and whooshes of melodrama, “Weightless” is a departure from the more muted sound she explored on her debut, “Collapsed in Sunbeams,” but the vivid lyrics still showcase her signature poeticism: “Cardamom and jade as your eyes screamed,” she sings, “on the night you showed your volcanic side.”Kim Petras, ‘Brrr’Kim Petras plays ice queen on the bold, commanding “Brrr,” a synth-pop track as industrial and echoey as a walk-in freezer. “Why don’t you take it out on me, if you think you’re so cold?” she asks a prospective paramour, delivering the line like a seductive dare.Ice Spice and Lil Tjay, ‘Gangsta Boo’Ice Spice cuts right to the chase on “Gangsta Boo” — “A baddie got’ get what she like/So what’s your sign, ’cause I like you?” — one of three new songs released today on her debut EP “Like..?” Her trusted producer RIOTUSA speeds up and adds some percussive crunch to a sample of P. Diddy’s “I Need a Girl Part 2,” while fellow Bronx rapper Lil Tjay drops in for an exuberant guest verse. “Gangsta Boo” doesn’t have the venomous attitude that made Ice Spice’s breakout single “Munch (Feelin’ U)” pop, but her effortless charisma sells the track just the same. More

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      Prosecutors Say Young Thug’s YSL Is Both Gang and Rap Label

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      Listen to This ArticleTo hear more audio stories from publications like The New York Times, download Audm for iPhone or Android.ATLANTA — Day after day, the young men came before a judge, handcuffed, clad in county jumpsuits and answering to their government names rather than their rap monikers: Slimelife Shawty, Unfoonk, Lil Duke and even the chart-topper Gunna, who is nominated for two Grammy Awards at next month’s ceremony in Los Angeles.Each pleaded guilty to a racketeering charge, some to other crimes. And each agreed, in open court, that the famed Atlanta rap crew they were associated with — YSL, headed by the enigmatic star Jeffery Williams, or Young Thug — was not only a renowned hip-hop collective, but also a criminal street gang.At the hearing for Slimelife Shawty, born Wunnie Lee, a prosecutor prompted him to acknowledge that his associates “have committed at least one of the following acts in the name of YSL: murder, aggravated assault, robbery, theft and/or illegal firearms possession.”“Yes, ma’am,” Mr. Lee, 24, said.The case has pitted law enforcement officials who say they are determined to stamp out a violent gang problem against those who see it as yet another moral panic inspired by rap, in a city with one of the most vibrant scenes in the nation. And it has once again raised questions about whether lyrics should only be taken as artistic expressions meant to portray a harsh reality, or as evidence of crimes.The guilty pleas by the four Atlanta rappers and four other men associated with YSL, all of whom are now free after seven months in jail on probation or with requirements that they meet special conditions, may have bolstered prosecutors’ blockbuster case against 14 other alleged members of the group, who are accused of conspiracy to commit racketeering, gang statute violations and more. Jury selection began last week, and the judge estimates that the trial could last six to nine months.Most remarkable among the remaining defendants is Mr. Williams, 31, whose iconoclastic mystique and psychedelic flow have landed him on pop hits, the “Saturday Night Live” stage and in Vogue. With a maximum 120-year sentence hanging over his head, the man who fans worldwide have come to love as Young Thug — but whom prosecutors describe as a cutthroat gang leader — is now facing the prospect of growing old in prison.Young Thug performed with Gunna (seated on piano) on “Saturday Night Live” in 2021, the year two albums headlined by Young Thug hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart.Will Heath/NBC, via Getty ImagesThe indictment charges Mr. Williams with participation in criminal street gang activity and of furthering the interest of a criminal conspiracy through a number of illegal acts; it does not charge him individually with most of those acts, which include accusations that he rented the car used in the murder of a rival gang leader and provided safe harbor for those responsible after the killing.Mr. Williams has denied everything. “Jeffery is a kind, intelligent, hard-working, moral and thoughtful person,” his lawyer, Brian Steel, said in a statement, arguing that the rapper had been wrongly targeted by law enforcement because of his fictional persona. “Despite the unthinkable oppressive, impoverished and cruel conditions of his upbringing, he has been able to cultivate his creative genius to lawfully and ethically attain phenomenal worldwide success.”The case has deeply shaken the pop culture universe, especially in Atlanta, Mr. Williams’s hometown, which can stake a claim as the hip-hop capital of the world. Fans, fellow artists, record executives and influential figures including Stacey Abrams, who was the Democratic nominee for governor last year, have sounded notes of concern, even outrage.Some have accused the prosecutor, Fani T. Willis — the aggressive district attorney for Fulton County, a Black Democrat who is best known for pursuing the criminal investigation into postelection meddling in Georgia by former President Donald J. Trump — of applying a “gang stereotype” to Atlanta’s rap community, and putting Black art on trial.The case has prompted an outcry, given how artists from the poorest parts of Atlanta have shaped global popular music. Young Thug’s nickname and YSL’s slang term of choice — slime — has gone international, its “wipe your nose” hand gesture a popular N.F.L. celebration.But the recent admissions in court point to a parallel reality: In Atlanta, law enforcement officials say, it has become increasingly difficult to discern the difference between some rap crews and street gangs, and to disentangle where exactly the credibility-obsessed art form overlaps with criminality.Ms. Willis contends that Atlanta is suffering from a plague of gang violence, estimating — with a hazy explanation for the figures — that up to 80 percent of violent crimes in the area are committed by gang members. She says that an eight-year war between YSL and a rival gang known as YFN, headed by another major-label rap artist, has accounted for more than 50 incidents.But in a city with a well-established path from the hardest streets to a world of fame, fortune and major awards shows — often via songs that chronicle, and some argue glorify, an outlaw life of drugs and guns — the nature of gang culture is also mutating, according to the authorities, with social media and music increasingly important to establishing dominance and influence.So while many young Black men in Atlanta see an escape in turning their dire circumstances in neglected communities into hard-edged rap music, investigators say some of it serves to establish clout, inspire fear, recruit members and fund illegal activity.“We believe that Mr. Williams doesn’t sing about random theoretical acts — he sings about gang acts he’s a part of,” Don Geary, then a lawyer for the district attorney’s office, said in court last year.Authenticity, an always slippery but foundational concept in hip-hop, has taken on even greater significance in the internet age. In places like Atlanta, it is a crucial selling point for the unflinching style of hip-hop known as trap music, which builds on earlier iterations of gangster rap and centers on the drug trade.And on social media, fans follow not just the music, but the lives of rappers and their associates, keeping scorecards of beefs and scores settled, even rooting them on.“It feels like they’re playing Grand Theft Auto in real life, and people are commenting on a video of them playing Grand Theft Auto,” said Gerald A. Griggs, president of Georgia’s conference of the N.A.A.C.P.Blurring the lines between gangs and musicAtlanta was not traditionally a stronghold of the major national gangs that took root in prisons and cities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago. But as a rapidly gentrifying city with some of the highest income inequality in the nation — and in a state with some of the laxest gun laws — gang culture has changed.Most common now, experts say, are what are known as “hybrid gangs”: looser constellations mixing members from various national sets, local crews and neighborhood cliques. These groups may have connections to the Bloods, Crips or Gangster Disciples, but often without their rules and hierarchies.While some traditional gangs, like the Mafia, are strict, top-down enterprises earning money through illicit business, the chief mission of today’s groups may be simply bolstering the brand.“That lack of structure makes it dangerous and unpredictable,” said Cara Convery, a former deputy district attorney for Fulton County who now runs a statewide unit targeting gangs. Money and territory remain important, she added, but “respect is still the primary currency of all of these gangs — it’s everything.”In places like Atlanta, law enforcement officials contend, it has become commonplace to align primarily with homegrown stars, who can offer aspirants prestige and money.“The new color lines,” said Marissa Viverito, a gang investigator in Ms. Willis’s office, “are the rappers.”The authorities say they are not targeting famous individuals or rap, a varied art form, writ large. Instead, they say, prosecutors hope to hold those at the top of the criminal food chain accountable, even when they overlap with a beloved, city-defining cultural product.Recent high-profile crimes said to be gang-related include the July 2020 killing of an 8-year-old girl; home break-ins targeting celebrities that have been tied to a recently indicted group called Drug Rich; and the December shooting deaths of two boys, ages 12 and 15, near the popular Atlantic Station mall.Fani T. Willis, the district attorney for Fulton County, contends that Atlanta is suffering from a plague of gang violence.Ben Gray/Associated PressMs. Willis is a seasoned prosecutor who took office in January 2021, amid a spike in homicides and growing unease about violent crime. Her work investigating Mr. Trump, which could result in indictments this year, has earned plaudits from liberals. But her focus on gangs has also made her a de facto ally of conservative leaders who have raised alarms about a statewide problem.Ms. Willis has expanded her anti-gang team and promised to make vigorous use of the state’s Street Gang Terrorism and Prevention Act and its Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations act, or RICO. She charged Mr. Williams, or Young Thug, under both laws, and has done the same for his rival Rayshawn Bennett, the rapper known as YFN Lucci, and his associates.Her beefed-up focus on gangs stands in contrast to other prosecutors, like George Gascón, the Los Angeles County district attorney, who in 2021 reduced, renamed and reorganized his office’s famous Hardcore Gang unit, moving away from a “purely prosecutorial model.”Ms. Willis has faced criticism for her hard-line approach to gangs, especially her office’s use of rap lyrics in indictments, which critics say raises First Amendment concerns.“People can continue to be angry about it,” Ms. Willis said at a news conference announcing the racketeering indictment against Drug Rich, which also included lyrics. “I have some legal advice: Don’t confess to crime on rap lyrics if you do not want them used. Or at least get out of my county.”Lawyers for Mr. Williams have called the practice unconstitutional, arguing it is “racist and discriminatory because the jury will be so poisoned and prejudiced.”Ms. Abrams, the prominent Democrat, said at a campaign appearance with the rapper 21 Savage last year that while “bad actors should be held accountable,” she did not believe that lyrics should be used as the basis for criminal charges. “The reality is we cannot thwart the entertainment industry in pursuit of justice,” she said.But the authorities argue that songs are no different than a text message or a confession, if the content can be tied to real-life events. (Prosecutors, for example, say that after YSL members fired on the home of YFN Lucci’s mother, Young Thug rapped, “I shot at his mommy, now he no longer mention me.”)“It’s a dangerous line,” said Ms. Convery, the gang prosecutor. “Art and expression and exaggeration surround all of this stuff.” However, she added: “If you are making music about the crime that you committed, I think it’s evidence. It would be crazy to leave that on the table.”Some critics are concerned that the justice system’s focus on young Black men seems to come at the expense of other issues, including Georgia’s white nationalist groups, and worry that Ms. Willis’s aggressive use of RICO statutes, which give prosecutors wide leeway, could wrap up innocent people.“When you blur the line between a criminal street gang and a music label, that could bring a lot of people into the net that don’t have anything to do with furthering criminal acts,” said Mr. Griggs, of the N.A.A.C.P.In a video interview from jail before his guilty plea, Mr. Lee, better known as Slimelife Shawty, said he had been wrongly ensnared by the scope of the case.Unlike other YSL defendants, some of whom were charged with murder, drug dealing and assault, he was accused of a single count: racketeering, or furthering YSL’s criminal enterprise by making music videos, posting online and rapping vague but threatening lyrics.At his Dec. 16 plea hearing, however, Mr. Lee confirmed that he had sent a message containing rat and brain emojis to a witness in a YSL-affiliated suspect’s murder case. Prosecutors interpreted this as a threat of violent retaliation.Mr. Lee was one of many young people who grew up along Cleveland Avenue, a desolate South Atlanta corridor, and were inspired by Mr. Williams and his transformation into the global star Young Thug.Rapping the often-violent content audiences wanted to hear, Mr. Lee said from jail, became “our main go-to to get out of this place.”A rap innovator on trialAccording to court documents, YSL was founded along Cleveland Avenue in late 2012 by Mr. Williams and two other men, both of whom have pleaded guilty in the case.But while the rapper’s defense team argues that he was repping Young Stoner Life, a fledgling record label and lifestyle brand, prosecutors say it was first Young Slime Life, an upstart criminal organization with ties to the national Blood offshoot Sex Money Murder.The battle with crosstown rivals YFN was sparked in 2015 with the murder of Donovan Thomas, known as Nut, a behind-the-scenes connector instrumental in the rap careers of YFN Lucci and Rich Homie Quan, a once-frequent collaborator of Young Thug.In the aftermath of the killing, the authorities say, many in the city picked sides as retaliatory shootings spilled across Atlanta.Prosecutors say Mr. Williams rented the car used during the fatal shooting of Mr. Thomas and then urged those involved to “lay low,” giving them cash and traveling with them to Miami, according to the guilty plea last month of a YSL founder charged in the case, Antonio Sledge.As law enforcement opened its investigation into the murder, Mr. Williams’s profile as a whimsical, genre-shifting musician — with attention-grabbing fashion sense that includes, in defiance of macho gangster stereotypes, wearing dresses — only grew.Last January, not long before the indictment, 300 Entertainment, the label that had signed Young Thug and his YSL imprint, sold to Warner Music for a reported $400 million.At a bail hearing last year, Kevin Liles, the chief executive of 300, was brought to tears on the stand describing Mr. Williams and “how good this guy is,” pointing to the rapper’s generosity and mentorship. He said in a statement on Wednesday: “Young Stoner Life Records is and always has been exclusively a recorded music partnership with Jeffery Williams. Nothing I’ve seen has changed my point of view.”But the authorities say Mr. Williams’s good deeds were a cover for his dark side. The case seeks to tie him to a spate of other violent crimes, including a 2015 tour bus shooting that targeted Lil Wayne, a one-time idol turned rival.Whether or not Young Thug is found to be YSL’s mastermind, there may be lasting consequences for members who publicly identified it as a gang. Artists who came up under him, like Mr. Lee and Gunna, born Sergio Kitchens, now face accusations of being snitches — a potentially fatal label for rappers who trade in toughness and loyalty.Mr. Kitchens, who like the others had agreed to testify as part of his plea deal, released a statement saying he would claim his Fifth Amendment privilege if called. And on Instagram, Mr. Lee said his plea did not tell the authorities anything they did not already know.“I admitted Young Slime Life was a gang ’cause it ain’t illegal for no group to be a gang,” he said, adding that he did not know anything about specific crimes. “Look it up.”As Slimelife Shawty, he teased, he would soon be rapping about all of it.Audio produced by More