Yella Beezy, whose legal name is Markies Conway, was accused of paying two men $40,000 to carry out the killing of Mo3, legally known as Melvin Noble. The shooting unfolded in November 2020 along Interstate 35, and the trial that ended this week stretched more than two weeks before jurors reached their decision.

Conway had pleaded not guilty to offering the money to Kewon White, identified as the gunman, and to Devin Brown, who is still awaiting trial. White was convicted last month and sentenced to life in prison.

Testimony during the trial painted a detailed picture of the ambush. On the second day, a doctor who witnessed the shooting on I-35 testified emotionally about risking his own safety to come to Noble's aid. Jurors also heard from rapper Jose Bodega, legally Theodore Thomas, who had told a grand jury that a feud existed between Conway and Noble but on the stand claimed he had fabricated it. The judge permitted prosecutors to treat Thomas as a hostile witness.

Defense attorney said Conway intends to appeal the conviction. The case now moves into the punishment phase.

The verdict closes one chapter of a case that has drawn attention well beyond Dallas's music scene. Conway, who once opened for Jay-Z and Beyoncé, has a history of legal entanglements: in 2021 he was arrested in Collin County on three charges of sexual assault, abandonment of an endangered child, and unlawful carrying of a weapon, though those charges were later dismissed. In 2018, he was shot multiple times inside a car on the Sam Rayburn Tollway in Lewisville.

For a city still reckoning with gun violence and the toll it takes on young lives, the conviction marks a rare moment of accountability in a high-profile killing that began as a feud between two local artists and ended in a deadly ambush on a busy interstate.