INDIO, California — During the chorus of “Digits,” Young Thug looked out and surveyed the Coachella crowd. Without smiling, the rapper held up his hands to make a heart.
“We ran up them digits, we ran up some money,” Thug half-sang, half-rapped on that song, backed by the shouts of thousands of fans. The words, like most Young Thug lines, blur into a series of elastic syllables, serving as fungible vessels for melody, tone and inflection.
Behind Karol G, the Atlanta rapper, born Jeffery Lamar Williams, was the top-billed Coachella act on Sunday. That placement was the culmination of a decade-plus career, spanning a dizzying number of mixtapes and now-classic hooks. Thug, whose vocal contortions echo in the raps of Playboi Carti, Lil Baby and countless others, is probably one of the most influential rappers of his generation. The mumble rapper par excellence.
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Pulling from his 2010s hits, the performance was a celebration of prime era Young Thug. Thug’s Gen Z fans, many of whom were in high school when “Barter 6” dropped, rapped along to “Lifestyle,” “Hot” and “Surf.” Dressed in a bedazzled football jersey and glittery pants, the rapper’s body sparkled as he stalked across the stage, behind intermittent bursts of flames and fireworks.
Thug brought out Ty Dolla $ign for a cover of “Carnival,” on which Thug rapped the chorus, and Nav for “Trimski.” Camila Cabello stepped onstage for “Havana,” on which Thug features for a verse.
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“What flag is that?” he said, peering out into the crowd, in the lead-in to “Havana.” “You said Costa Rica? Puerto Rico? Damn. Puerto Rico.”
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The performance is part of an extended victory lap for the rapper, following a string of smaller festival appearances in 2025. In October 2024, the rapper was released from jail in Fulton County, Georgia, after spending two years tied up in the longest trial in the state’s history.
Young Thug performs at the 2026 Coachella Valley Music And Arts Festival – Weekend 1 – Day 3 on April 12, 2026 in Indio, California.
Katie Flores/Billboard via Getty Images
To fully appreciate the strange beauty of Young Thug’s Coachella set, it bears repeating the details of the trial, a legal circus that involved the recusals of two judges, the sentencing of a defense lawyer to jail time and online leaks of jurors’ faces.
Prosecutors alleged that Thug’s label, YSL, doubled as a violent criminal gang, and used Georgia’s anti-racketeering law to try Thug and several of his YSL associates simultaneously. In addition to gang, drug and gun charges, the DA alleged that Young Thug helped plan the 2015 murder of Donovan Thomas, Jr., also known as “Big Nut.”
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But the trial, which waded through a decade of testimony, grew unmanageable in scope. The jury selection process lasted for 10 months, and after opening statements, complications arose.
Prosecutors used Young Thug’s lyrics as evidence, a move that critics decried as racist.
One defendant, Kenneth Copeland (Lil Woody), fired his lawyer while on the witness stand. Another defendant testified under oath that he was “so high right now.” One of Young Thug’s co-defendants allegedly handed the rapper drugs while in the courthouse, an exchange caught on video.
In 2025, after the conclusion of the trial, one of the trial’s defense lawyers announced that she was expecting a child with one of Young Thug’s co-defendants, in what she described on social media as “a true Atlanta love story.”
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After pleading guilty to six counts, Young Thug was sentenced to time served and immediately released from jail. As part of his parole agreement, the judge required the rapper to avoid the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, with exceptions. One of those exceptions, apparently, was a free September 2025 concert he held in front of the Fulton County courthouse.
This racketeering trial, which appeared to have pushed his state’s legal system to its breaking point, may very well be Young Thug’s second artistic masterpiece. The first might be “Pick Up the Phone” with Travis Scott, which he played on Sunday night. At the first sound of the song’s beat, phones flew up in the air. “I’m in the zone, baby,” the rapper crooned, covering for Scott’s hook.
The rapper worked the crowd with a dry sense of humor. Before running through the song “Hot,” Young Thug repeatedly urged the audience to open a mosh pit. When the pits didn’t immediately materialize, he asked the crowd: “What is this? Not English?”
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Young Thug’s autotuned vocals sounded clear live, to the point that it was hard to distinguish his vocals from his backing track. For the most part, he kept a mellow stage presence, pacing the stage as he rapped. In between tracks, he spoke quietly to the crowd, sometimes singling out individual audience members.
“What’s up bro, how’re you doing? Where’s your parents?” he said, apparently spotting a young fan. “Alright, that’s cool.”
At another point, he apparently spotted singer and actor Teyana Taylor in the VIP section, and addressed her by name.
“I’ve been trying to get in touch with her for like the last month,” he told the crowd. “I wanted her to style me, now she’s just, she’s too big.”
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The highlight of the performance was probably Young Thug’s second to last track, “Lifestyle,” a Rich Gang song. “I done did a lot of s—t just to live this here lifestyle,” he raps. On the recording, he leans into the last word, stretching the long “i” into a hook within a hook. Live, he puts down the microphone and lets the crowd finish the bar.
After that track and one more, “The London,” he wrapped his 50-minute set. Then he peeled off his jersey, handed it to a fan, and walked off stage shirtless.