Young Thug criticizes André 3000, Kendrick Lamar for allegedly not putting any rappers on & takes a shot at J. Cole for not collaborating with NBA Youngboy in a new leaked jail call

In early September, an audio leak from Young Thug's jail phone calls revealed his criticism of André 3000 and Kendrick Lamar for not supporting younger artists in the industry, including himself.

Numerous leaked jail calls from Young Thug have surfaced in 2025, triggering controversy within the music industry.

Young Thug recently claimed that Kendrick Lamar wants to "keep all the blessings to himself" because Lamar declined to feature on Thug's album, suggesting that Kendrick doesn't collaborate to support other artists. Thug also compared Kendrick's selective collaborations to Drake's extensive ones, implying Kendrick would never reach Drake's level of cultural influence. These comments originated from a recently leaked jail call recording in which Thug expressed his disappointment after being rejected by Kendrick.

In another leaked audio, Young Thug commented that although André 3000 holds legendary status, he has not used his influence to support other rappers. 

• "You became one of the biggest artists... But you ain't help nobody. You ain't put nobody on," Thug said about 3 stacks.

  
  

• Thug also calls the OutKast member "vintage" and says he can no longer release a song and have it chart in the top 50. 

Thug even criticized J. Cole regarding NBA YoungBoy for not working with YoungBoy. 

In the leaked jail call, audio can be heard saying, "YB the biggest artist in the world on YouTube, why wouldn't J. Cole do a song with him? You ain't never in your life sold more records than this boy".

Young Thug's comments reference rumors of friction between J. Cole and YoungBoy. J. Cole himself mentioned these rumors on Drake's 2023 song "First Person Shooter," rapping, "I still wanna get me a song with YB, can't trust everything that you saw on IG".

The beef's origin: In 2021, J. Cole spent eight hours waiting for NBA YoungBoy at a recording studio, but YoungBoy didn't arrive. YoungBoy later clarified that he wasn't mentally prepared for the session, yet his lack of communication was perceived as disrespectful.

This incident led to reports of YoungBoy having a perceived "beef" with J. Cole, with YoungBoy later expressing frustration with Cole for appearing to want a feature without wanting to truly collaborate.

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The leaked calls, originating from his period of incarceration while awaiting and during his YSL RICO trial (May 2022–October 2024), include severe remarks about other artists. Allegedly acquired through open records requests for public jail calls, these leaks have caused considerable backlash.

Key details from the leaked jail calls include:

• GloRilla

  : Thug made disparaging remarks about GloRilla's looks in a call with Mariah the Scientist, his girlfriend. After the audio leaked, Thug publicly apologized via a post on X. GloRilla responded with a tweet implying Thug had previously tried to contact her.

  
  

• Gunna

  : Thug claimed he bought $50,000 worth of fake streams to help Gunna's album DS4EVER reach No. 1 on the charts. He also stated that he deliberately released his album Business Is Business a week after Gunna's A Gift & A Curse to overshadow Gunna.

  
  

• Kendrick Lamar

  : Thug criticized Kendrick Lamar after being denied a feature request, claiming artists like him and J. Cole will never be as big as Drake.

  
  

• Gucci Mane

  : Thug claimed that Gucci Mane "turned soft" following his own stint in jail.

  
  

• Addressing the backlash: After the leaks, Young Thug posted on X, stating, "Bashing me only goin f**k that rap community up more, I'm the blue to this fake a** game".