G Herbo on Overcoming a Federal Fraud Case & New Mixtape ‘Big Swerv’

G Herbo stands in the wood-paneled control room of a studio in Chicago’s River West neighborhood one afternoon in early May, playing potential tracks for his latest mixtape, Big Swerv (out Sept. 6). He recorded much of it right here in this studio, which served as his second home through the seismic turmoil of the past three years, a period that threatened to upend his career and nearly ended his life.

The mixtape builds on 2018’s Swervo, which takes the name of his alter ego. “One of my friends just gave me that name. It had a lot to do with my lifestyle, like living fast,” Herb, whose given name is Herbert Randall Wright III, tells Rolling Stone. “I was making a lot of money at a young age, and we used to call it swerves.”

“So Big Swerv is me coming into my adulthood,” Herb, 28, adds. But it’s also him doing something he hasn’t previously been able to do: let loose with his music. “The music is a lot more mature than anything I’ve probably ever put out. It’s me having fun, though, too. Like, I never really did a lot of those party records, club records, like the catchy anthems.”

The party vibes of the music, not to mention Herb’s infectious smile and sincerity, belie a life full of rough moments. Today, he’s dressed in a Barrow white sweatshirt with colorful, graffiti-style artwork splashes; bright, vertically striped loose pants; and his signature Air Force 1 — his fit accented by a diamond-encrusted watch, bracelet, and chains that double as memorials. One features his late grandmother, Tony Diane Clay, whom he was close to growing up in Chicago. Another medallion features the number 25 —the title of his fourth solo studio album, but also a tribute to Gregory Jackson III, a.k.a. Lil Greg, who died in 2021, just shy of his 25th birthday. “It’s for my brother who passed away because he died on Jan. 28 [2021],” Herbo explains. “His birthday was Feb. 4, so it was seven days before his 25th birthday. And two plus five is seven. I’m kinda, like, weird and spiritual and psychological. I think about stuff like that.”

Turning the 25 medallion to its side, Herb reveals an engraving featuring the name of two of his kids, Essex, three, and Yosohn, six. (He has a daughter, Emmy, though she came after the medallion.) Still another chain supports an embossed relief of friend and fellow Chicago rapper Juice WRLD, who died in December 2019. “He had like the best, like purest soul,” Herbo says of Juice.

Herb has documented significant losses throughout his career, deaths that inspired albums such as PTSD, 25, and Survivor’s Remorse, all of which hit the Top 10. His brutal honesty — about witnessing life being taken and grappling with the trauma that follows — has contributed to a legacy he began as a teenage progenitor of the drill scene. But in the midst of his rise, he found himself facing a legal case that turned his own life upside down. 

In November 2018, Herb was on tour with the producer Southside. At around eight one morning, their tour bus was traveling through Ohio, and Herb was getting ready to sleep. At the time, he was pretty heavily into lean, a potent concoction comprising the antihistamine promethazine and codeine, which he had been consuming since he was 15. “It was a way that I dealt with my trauma,” he explains of the drug, which he has since kicked. “I did it really pretty much so I could sleep at night. I still have nightmares to this day.”

At one point, Herbo says, the bus driver mentioned that cops were pulling the bus over. Herb wasn’t too worried; he figured it was because someone on the bus caught a warrant. Soon, though, he learned this stop was anything but routine. “It was, like, 30, 40 police cars outside,” he says. “And when they pulled us off the bus, it was literally ATF, Secret Service, FBI, and the DEA all outside — Army tanks, helicopters. You know those interrogation vans that’s shaped like an ice cream truck? Like three of those outside.”

Herbo found himself in a police car, where he promptly fell asleep. “Anytime I would get in trouble or get arrested, I would just fall asleep ’cause I feel like being in my head just makes it worse,” he says. But then he was awoken and moved to one of the interrogation vans. “I get on the truck, and they’re investigating me. They asked me about this name — of course, I won’t disclose the name. And I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’” he says.

At one point, the investigators began asking him about wire fraud. “As soon as they said that, I got, like, a big relief. I don’t want to sound ignorant or anything, [but] I kind of got cocky because I don’t do fraud,” he says. “I don’t even know how to really work my cell phone. I barely check my emails, unless it’s having something to do with business. So all of that tech shit and doing frauds and identity theft and credit cards — I’ve never partaken in anything like that in my life.”

Things seemed even better for Herb when no one was arrested, and, he claims, the investigators didn’t confiscate any seemingly incriminating items from the bus. (“We had a bunch of lean, a bunch of weed, a bunch of pills on the bus. And they didn’t care about none of that shit,” Herb notes.) “I was fully relaxed,” he says. 

While the investigators left the drugs and legal firearms alone and in the bus, Herb says, there was something they did confiscate: his phones. And despite Herb’s street smarts and previous police run-ins, he had, it turns out, made a serious misstep. During his interrogation, he says, investigators asked if he knew Antonio Strong — a man Herb does not refer to by name during our interview. “I’m like, ‘Bro, what the fuck? I don’t even know that guy.’ You know what I’m saying? But I was lying. I did know him,” he says. “I always got, like, investigated by Chicago police and [for], like, state-police cases. This is a federal case. Lying to a federal agent is a federal offense. I’m just so used to, you know, not telling or not giving information, I’m like, ‘I don’t know them. I’m not finna tell you anything anyways.’” (Herb adds that he should not have been talking to anyone in his state in the first place, and that he should have asked for a lawyer. “My statement really shouldn’t even have been admissible because I was so fucking high, and they knew I was high,” he says.) 

Herb tells me he met Strong at some point through the tight-knit Chicago rap and club scene. But, he insists, they were not close. “He was never a guy that I hung out with,” he says. “He’s not from my neighborhood. I didn’t grow up with him. Like, I can’t even really tell you exactly how we met or what that conversation was ’cause I don’t even remember, it was so long ago.” In fact, when investigators raided Herbo’s tour bus, he says, “he wasn’t even a close enough friend for me to call him and tell him what I had going on. So I didn’t reach out to him or anybody that they asked me about. And, you know, time went on and they never came back.”

And then, two years later, in October 2020, shit hit the fan. Herb and five “associates,” including Strong, were indicted on federal fraud charges (the indictment was unsealed shortly after on Dec. 2, the day before Herb self-surrendered). Herb and the other men were accused of participating in a nationwide wire-fraud and identity-theft scheme. Herb was also later charged with making false statements to a federal agent. 

The indictment alleged that, beginning in or around March 2016, Herb and the five other men including Strong, committed wire fraud, using stolen and unauthorized cardholder account information to purchase trips on private jets and yachts, stay in swank hotels and vacation rentals, rent exotic cars, and hire limousines with chauffeurs, among other lavish items. Among the extravagant items purchased, per the indictment, were designer puppies, a private chef, and security-guard services. 

The 22-page indictment reads like a coordinated Bling Ring-like scheme, but instead of robbing celebs for their lifestyle wares, it appeared the wire-fraud perpetrators used unknown and unwitting credit card holders’ accounts to live like celebrities. As news of the case broke, headlines were relentless in portraying Herb as someone allegedly looking to live a lavish lifestyle on someone else’s dime: “Rapper G Herbo Arrested in Fraud Plot to Buy High-End Puppies, Trips on Jets” read one; “G Herbo Charged in Massive Fraud Schemes Involving Trips to Jamaica and Exotic Puppies,” another said.

But according to Herb, he didn’t need to commit wire fraud: He says he was already making plenty of money from his music to pay for the lifestyle he was already living. “Even in 2016, I was still like, I wouldn’t say a big superstar, but I was a star. I was doing music, I had some success. I was making money, I was selling records already,” Herb says.

Herb denies having perpetrated any of the alleged wire fraud behind Strong’s apparently bargain-priced services, and says he paid Strong with his own earned money in every exchange between them. Herb says he viewed Strong, the man considered to be the ringleader, as “kind of in a way like a travel agent,” a third party who books things like private jets and luxury cars. “I’m not looking into how’s he purchasing it,” he admits, but “I never got anything for free.” 

In other words, Herbo knew he was getting a deal when he gave Strong money for private-jet bookings and foreign trips, but, he says, he was unaware how those deals came to be. That wasn’t his business or issue, he thought. “Any transaction, any business that I did at the time with the guy that was on the case — like he’s the head of the case, I’m just a defendant on a case — all I did was just pay money for goods, as an exchange of goods,” he says. 

In May 2024, Strong pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and four counts of wire fraud. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 19. A lawyer for Strong declined to comment to Rolling Stone on behalf of Strong.

Despite his assertion that he himself did not commit wire fraud, Herb took responsibility for his actions. He pleaded guilty in July 2023 to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and one count of making a false statement to a federal official. Herb’s plea agreement contains text and Instagram message exchanges between him and Strong that demonstrate he was paying Strong for goods or services; Herb also frequently initiated contact to obtain goods from Strong. The court doc also shows Strong requesting Herb use an alias in a few of their exchanges — Strong: “Don’t forget DARREN IS MY NAME IF HE ASK. HE DOESN’T NO [sic] ANYTHING ELSE BUT DARREN”; Wright: “I gotchu bro he good. Just answer when I call you Ima need you.” 

It still bothers Herb how the case was portrayed both in court and in public. “I had already been accustomed to the life and everything that I was doing. That’s why it was so easy for me to purchase the things that I purchased,” he says. “They think I was having someone like, ‘Oh, use this bogus credit card and do this and do that — give me a jet and give me this and give me that.’ I was just living my regular lifestyle. I was already all flying jets, and if I could, get it discounted or get something at a better rate because this guy’s offering me those services.”

In January, Herb was sentenced to three years’ probation and ordered to “pay restitution and forfeiture of $139,968 each, as well as a $5,500 fine,” according to his sentence. “I sat in court, and I held myself accountable in front of the judge,” he says, adding that in court he apologized to the victims and the families who were affected by his “minor” role in the scheme. “And, you know, he gave me grace, he granted me mercy. I was able to stay home with my family. I’m super grateful for that. But it was definitely a rough patch.”

In that rough patch between the indictment and his sentencing, things went from bad to nearly unsurvivable. Shortly after Herb was indicted in late 2020, Lil Greg died. Herb spiraled. Because of the case, he could not smoke weed, which he had used to treat his PTSD, and he had kicked lean (and has not touched it since) after going to a detox treatment facility for it a second time, in 2019. So Herb turned to alcohol. “That was like the hardest time I ever went through in my life. I literally just resorted to drinking. I fell into alcoholism so bad. I drunk every single day. Like, I almost lost my life,” he says.

Meanwhile, seeing fans and others who once praised him on the internet think he was “a scammer” and assume he would steal from others did not help his mental state. Herb’s fiancée had just bought him a new Jeep Grand Cherokee Trackhawk, and one night, he says, he was driving home drunk from the studio when he crashed and totaled his car. He escaped with no major injuries but knew he was in a bad way. The incident was a turning point for Herb: He leaned on his faith and also focused on his belief that he would not go to jail for something that he says he did not do, even while his family and friends were concerned that he might.

In 2023, Herb sued his former manager, Joseph “JB” Bowden, and label Machine Entertainment Group. The complaint alleged that Bowden had taken advantage of Herb when he was a minor, accusing Bowden and the label of “unfair” and “one-sided” deals to obtain Herb’s copyrights and other “valuable rights.”

In the complaint, Herb sought at least $40 million in damages and for material breaches, as well as termination of their recording agreement and for Herb to retain copyright of his recordings. “When I was 16, 15 is when I signed my deal, and I had to have my parents involved. The deal wasn’t really a good deal in my favor at all, you know, so I signed for a lot of albums,” he says, adding that he had “signed away 100 percent of my publishing at one time.” Per documents from the case, Bowden disputed what Herb was owed, stating that Herb’s “lack of financial self-awareness” led to him “wrongfully believing” that he should be recouped on their recording agreement, and denied he was “being cheated out of money.”

The case was settled out of court and was dismissed in March. Herb says he now owns 100 percent of his publishing, and he needs to record/submit one more project, after which he’ll own 100 percent of his masters going forward.

While Herb is happy with the deal, it was not an easy decision to sue. “A lot of empires, a lot of businesses, a lot of friendships, a lot of relationships were ruined because of these same things that I went through: because of money, because of splits, because of things like that,” Herb says. “I feel like, especially as Black men, if you can’t really come to the table and come to an agreement, you know, what was the point?” There was also love and respect that came from years of working together, which complicated things further. “I did look at [Bowden] like family. It wasn’t a business relationship for me, you know. There were certain things that I would have signed without a lawyer because I trusted him that much.”

Herb’s nonprofit Swervin’ Through Stress, a youth mental-health program that became a 501(c)(3) in 2023, had teamed up with his then-label and Bowden to turn the vacant Overton Elementary School in Chicago’s South Side into a multimedia center where kids can learn trades like audio production and videography. But the legal falling out put the renovation plans for “the project to the side for a minute,” as Herb puts it, though the facility is open to the public and continues to hold events. “So as far as the community and giving back to the youth,” Herb says, “I believe, of course, both of us will actually put our pride aside dealing with music and still focus on that project to get that done.”

HAVING PERSEVERED THROUGH three-plus years of life-altering events, Herb says that he’s grown not only musically but also business-wise, and now has a team he trusts. “I can actually bet on myself and execute with the people that I decided to put around me,” he says.

Here in the studio, a venue that has served as solace for him since he was a teen, he’s ready for the next chapter. This particular studio is a comforting one, to the point that a wall of photos includes a snap of his son Yosohn.

His publicist joins us, as well as one of his producers, Daniel “Oz on the Track” Ivy, and Herb’s in-house engineer, Nicholas “Mixed by White” White. The tracks we listen to are bops: There are songs inspired by hitting the club and made for a freeing night out, including “Yup” and the rumbling “In the A,” which features 21 Savage. Herb’s confessional storytelling flavors “Candyman,” which outlines his recent tribulations. 

And there’s also the hard-hitting, raspily rapped “Splat,” which infuses his ambition amid clever wordplay. At one point he rhymes some of it a cappella: “Humble beast, that’s still me, but I’m the chosen one at that/Hot n—-, yes, indeed, but I’m the coldest wherever I’m at/I got that working hard, you n—-s lazy, y’all just wanted that/You n—-s remind me of Tom Brady, never wanted a sack.”

Fellow Chicago-bred rapper Chief Keef (“No Pics”) is among the features, as are Sexyy Redd (“Ten”) and Skilla Baby (“Shoot”). “Strike You (Intro)” sets Big Swerv’s intentions, and it’s among Herb’s favorites. “The first line is like, ‘And no none of this should get me excited. Therefore, I don’t get upset if I don’t get invited. That’s why if I don’t feel respect, then flames get ignited,’” he tells me. “I’m not really here for the glitter and the gold and the perception of what people think is important to me, like a lot of this shit really don’t get me excited.”

What does motivate him is songwriting, which has been a salvation from the legal woes and deaths that have marked his past three years. I ask how many tracks he’s laid down this year thus far: “Probably 150, 200 songs,” he says matter-of-factly. “You’re in the studio every day,” his publicist affirms. Herb says he averages 500 to 600 songs a year. 

As we hang out in the studio over a couple of hours, friends keep on arriving. Herb wants to get their feedback on sequencing for the album. There’s pizza, veggie trays, and a hopeful vibe in the air — well deserved, as Herb’s been through a long journey to get here. And on Sept. 6 his alter ego will emerge once again with Big Swerv. Herb’s more than ready for his next, freeing chapter.

While his past three studio albums dealt with pain, he’s hoping that he can leave some of that behind him. “Not everybody has been in the streets. And not everybody had to experience violence to the levels that I’ve experienced violence. I was always vulnerable and talked about it through my music,” he says of his past material. But with Big Swerv, he showcases his growth as a rapper and looks toward better times. “So I want to talk about having fun, I want to talk about traveling the world, and living life, and fashion, and stuff that everybody loves, that everybody can relate to.”