Another Black brother is out of jail but the nagging question is, can he manage his actions and not do anything that will drag him back to jail? According to his lawyer, Kodak Black is a changed man.
“He’s taking the time to really be introspective,” Fort Lauderdale criminal defense attorney Bradford Cohen said when we spoke on the phone two weeks before Kodak’s release. “I think that he’s grown a lot since he’s been in [jail], and I think that when he gets out, he’ll have a lot more tools to be successful in other areas, and not just as a recording artist.”

The 21-year-old Kodak, born Dieuson Octave and now legally known as Bill K. Kapri, has been behind bars in Broward County, Florida, for seven months—until today. He was serving time for charges stemming from a January 2018 raid of his home, which came after an Instagram Live video streamed from the house showed a man smoking weed near Kodak’s child while another rolled a joint and a third handled a gun “in a reckless manner,” the Sun Sentinel reported.
In all, Kodak was hit with grand theft of a firearm, two charges of possession of a weapon or ammunition by a felon, possession of marijuana over 20 grams, neglecting a child without great bodily harm, and two probation violation charges. Cohen was able to reduce those charges to the probation violations: driving with a suspended license and “associating with people committing crimes.”
In April, Kodak, who had been in jail since January, struck a plea deal that gave him a projected release date of September 17, 2018. His August release was made possible when a judge added 30 days to his time served.

Now that Kodak is walking free, with no probation in sight, what comes next? Given his history, it isn’t farfetched to assume he may pick up where he left off. After all, he was free for all of seven months before he was incarcerated again this year. Now that he’s out, there’s a chance he’ll go back in for sexual battery charges brought against him in South Carolina. But those close to Kodak are adamant that he’s ready to make a real change.
Cohen says the rapper’s actions show that he’s improving himself. The biggest sign, Cohen says, was Kodak’s pursuit and completion of a GED, which he received in late June.
“He only got two hours of freedom a day from his cell, and those two hours he spent studying,” Cohen said. “He studied for, I think, three or four months.” On top of studying for his GED, Kodak, Cohen says, took a 10-week parenting course and a life skills course.