Rock band The 1975 are in the throws of their world tour, which kicked off late last year and runs until May. During their Belfast stop, lead singer Matty Healy decided to divert from the program to shout out Young Thug, who is currently in the midst of a highly publicized legal battle in Atlanta. As the concertgoers in SSE Arena listened on, Healy expressed his feelings about the YSL head honcho’s situation over Auto-Tune:
“Free Young Thug. None of these cultural references make any sense without Young Thug. Don’t care if he did anything with guns. Free Thugger. F**kin’ free Thugger.”
He then ended his short speech by telling everyone to “do their research,” eliciting yells from some and what appeared to be confusion from others.
Young Thug, Gunna, and a number of other individuals from the Young Stoner Life collective were arrested last year on RICO charges. Last month, Gunna was released from jail after entering an Alford plea, which resulted in him receiving a suspended sentence and an order to complete several hundred hours of community service.
While the aforementioned on-stage message was surprising, The 1975 aren’t strangers to the hip hop landscape by any means. Previously, Healy joined many others in calling for A$AP Rocky‘s freedom following the Harlem talent’s arrest in Sweden a few years ago. In a 2013 MTV interview, the British vocalist expressed his love for the rap genre:
“That kind of beat poetry inspired and really, really informed the way that I wrote lyrics,” he stated. “I never really had a formula for writing lyrics, but the only thing I did know was that I wanted it to be as earthy as that is, like Seamus Heaney and people like that.”
You can check out fan footage of Healy speaking on Thugger below.
