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Rappers Who Are In Jail Right Now

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Hip-hop’s hardest-edged subgenre has always blurred the line between lyrics and lived reality — and in the summer of 2018, the courts are proving it.

Gangsta rap built its reputation in the ’90s on hardcore rhymes from Ice-T, Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, and the debate over whether that violence is art or autobiography has never really been settled. What isn’t up for debate is the growing list of artists currently behind bars. Nicki Swift’s rundown of “Rappers Who Are In Jail Right Now” runs through the household names and the lesser-known cases, and the sentences on the docket range from a few years to nearly four decades.

• Kodak Black has been arrested multiple times, including a Florida home raid that was broadcast live on his own Instagram.
• DMX was sentenced to a year in prison for tax evasion in March 2018, while Bobby Shmurda is seven years into a plea deal on conspiracy and weapons charges from 2016.
• Meek Mill was released on bail in April 2018 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court intervened in his contested probation violation case — a sharp contrast to the artists still locked up.

Kodak Black’s Repeat Trips Back to Jail

Florida rapper Kodak Black has made a habit of landing back in custody almost as fast as he gets out. One of his most publicized run-ins involved a raid on his home that he streamed himself on Instagram Live, turning an active police search into real-time content for his followers. It’s the kind of moment that’s become a recurring theme for Kodak — chart success on one hand, an open case file on the other.

DMX’s Tax Case and Bobby Shmurda’s Plea Deal

DMX’s legal trouble in 2018 wasn’t about violence — it was about the IRS. He was sentenced to a year behind bars for tax evasion in March 2018, a quieter but still costly consequence for one of rap’s most recognizable voices. Bobby Shmurda’s situation traces back further: the Brooklyn rapper, born Ackquille Pollard, took a plea deal in 2016 on conspiracy and weapons charges and is currently serving a seven-year sentence.

A Florida home raid streamed live on Instagram, a tax case that put DMX away for a year, and a fugitive teenager whose hit single dropped while he was still on the run — the video’s cases span the full range of how rap careers collide with the courtroom.

The Heavier Sentences: Nation, RondoNumbaNine and Tay-K

Some of the cases the video highlights carry far steeper consequences than fines or a single year inside. Chicago rapper Nation, real name Ricardo Burgos, was sentenced in January 2018 to 188 months — over 15 years — in federal prison after brandishing firearms in a music video while he was still on felony probation. Fellow Chicago drill artist RondoNumbaNine is serving 39 years for the 2014 fatal shooting of a taxi driver, one of the longest sentences covered in the feature.

Texas teenager Tay-K became a viral phenomenon for the wrong reasons: he released his hit single “The Race” while actively a fugitive, before being arrested in June 2017 on capital murder and robbery charges. The video also touches on California rapper Billy “Wild Bill” Shaffer Jr., convicted of involuntary manslaughter and sentenced to 13 years following an October 2014 nightclub shooting, plus cases involving sex trafficking charges tied to other regional artists — a reminder of how far outside the spotlight some of these cases play out. For a broader look at how celebrity sentences sometimes don’t run their full course, the biggest celebrity prison sentences that were cut short is worth a look.

Meek Mill’s Release Stands Apart

Against all of that, the video points to Meek Mill as the exception. The Philadelphia rapper walked out of prison on bail in April 2018 after the Pennsylvania Supreme Court stepped in, following heavy public scrutiny over the probation violation sentence that put him there in the first place. It’s the one storyline in the entire rundown with a happy ending — at least for now — while artists like RondoNumbaNine and Nation are still years, in some cases decades, away from their release dates. Rap’s long history of legal trouble runs deep, and even a legend like LL Cool J built part of his early legend navigating that same tension between the street and the spotlight, as detailed in the tragedy of LL Cool J.

Tay-K’s case is the one still generating the most attention heading into the back half of 2018 — a capital murder charge attached to a song that was, at the time of his arrest, sitting on the Billboard Hot 100. Whatever happens in that courtroom will likely be the next major update to a list that’s already long enough to fill an entire video segment.