Credit: Erica Banks

Erica Banks was arrested this week for possessing a stolen gun at an airport. The 26-year-old Texas rapper, who has collaborated with Travis Scott, was taken into custody at Clayton County Jail on August 6th.

Officers stopped Banks at the North Checkpoint of Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport after the X-ray machine detected a gun inside her Louis Vuitton bag on the conveyor belt.

Banks, attempting to fly to Houston, claimed she didn’t know the black and grey Smith and Wesson was in the carry-on bag.

When police officers performed checks on the firearm, they found that it had been stolen from Greensville, South Carolina, in 2018.

According to Fox 5 Atlanta, Banks claimed the gun belonged to her security, but refused to provide a name to the officers. She was reportedly released from jail a few hours after her arrest.

Banks is best known for her viral single ‘Buss It’ in 2020, which peaked at number 47 on the Billboard Hot 100. This led to her signing a record deal with Warner Records in January 2021. Travis Scott worked with Banks on a ‘Buss It’ remix that year.

In 2023, Banks joined the cast of the VH1 reality television series Love and Hip Hop: Atlanta. She has over 639,000 Instagram followers and 687,000 monthly Spotify listeners.

‘Buss It‘ boasts 155million streams on the platform. ‘Toot That’ also has nine million streams, and ‘Throw a Lil Mo (Do It)’ has seven million.

Following her release from jail this week, Banks returned with a new single, ‘Dallas’, alongside a music video. Her last album, Cocky on Purpose 2, dropped in August 2024 and featured BigXthaPlug, Toosii, Ralo, and Skilla Baby.