Why Pooh Shiesty Isn’t Stupid. He Just Comes From a Different Rulebook.

The recording artiste Pooh Shiesty, real name Lontrell Denell Williams Jr (Getty Images)

An interesting case emerged last week when rapper Pooh Shiesty returned to the spotlight after federal prosecutors alleged that he forced his former mentor, Gucci Mane, to release him from his recording contract while armed associates stood nearby. Prosecutors further allege that the encounter involved kidnapping, robbery and extortion, and that Shiesty recorded parts of it on his own phone.

He has pleaded not guilty, and the case remains before the courts.

On paper, it is the kind of story that makes people ask the same question:

“How can someone be that dumb?”

I think that’s the wrong question.

For readers unfamiliar with the background, Gucci Mane wasn’t simply another rapper. He discovered Pooh Shiesty, signed him to his 1017 label in 2020 and introduced him to a mainstream audience. Their relationship resembled that of mentor and protégé until it reportedly deteriorated over business disagreements and Shiesty’s desire to leave the label.

The irony is that if you’ve listened to Pooh Shiesty’s music over the years, none of these allegations feel entirely disconnected from the persona he has presented. Songs like Back in Blood and much of his catalogue revolve around loyalty, retaliation, reputation and power. Whether that persona reflects reality is a separate question, but it has always been the world he described.

None of that means the allegations are true. And if they are ultimately proven in court, it certainly does not excuse the alleged conduct. Those are legal and moral questions for the justice system.

The more interesting question is why so many people assume that anyone accused of behaving this way must simply be unintelligent.

Psychologists have a name for part of this tendency: the fundamental attribution error.

We instinctively explain other people’s behaviour by their character. They are reckless. They are stupid. They are evil.

Yet when we explain our own mistakes, we reach for context. We were under pressure. We had limited options. We panicked. We rarely extend that same generosity to strangers.

That doesn’t mean context removes responsibility. It means context helps explain behaviour.

The truth is that environment shapes far more of our lives than we’d like to admit.

Here in Nairobi, consider the difference between growing up in Mathare and growing up in Ridgeways.

Two children may be born only a few kilometres apart, yet their chances of finishing school, finding stable employment, encountering violence, accessing quality healthcare and building professional networks can be dramatically different before either has made a single meaningful decision.

Even what appears to be “choice” is often heavily constrained.

Diet isn’t simply about discipline when healthy food costs more than what is available around you.

Voting patterns aren’t formed in a vacuum when communities experience government differently and rely on different local power structures.

Family size isn’t merely a personal preference when access to education, healthcare, contraception, economic security and cultural expectations differ so widely.

Behavioural economists call this bounded rationality.

People make decisions that seem rational within the limits of the information, opportunities and pressures they actually face, not the ones outside observers imagine they should have.

Another useful concept is the scarcity mindset.

When resources, security or opportunity are constantly limited, the brain naturally prioritises immediate problems over distant consequences. That doesn’t mean people become less intelligent. It means scarcity changes how decisions are made.

The same principle extends well beyond poverty.

Professional athletes play through injuries because careers are short.

Executives take enormous financial risks because markets reward aggression.

Politicians often make decisions that optimise the next election rather than the next generation.

Context shapes incentives, and incentives shape behaviour.

If prosecutors’ allegations are ultimately proven, recording parts of an encounter involving serious criminal offences may seem astonishing to most people. But human beings do not always behave according to what outsiders consider logical. We routinely overestimate our ability to control situations, underestimate the likelihood of getting caught and make decisions that reinforce the identity we have built for ourselves.

The courts will determine whether Pooh Shiesty committed the crimes alleged against him.

Before rushing to conclude that he is simply “stupid,” however, it is worth asking a more uncomfortable question:

Would we have become meaningfully different people had we lived every year of our lives under the same incentives, expectations and social rules?

Most of us like to believe the answer is yes.

History suggests we should be less certain.