BIGSONG:
Kentrell DeSean Gaulden (born October 20, 1999), known professionally as YoungBoy Never Broke Again (also known as NBA YoungBoy or simply YoungBoy), is an American rapper. Between 2015 and 2017, he released eight independent mixtapes and steadily garnered a cult following through his work. In August 2017, Gaulden was signed to Atlantic Records. In January 2018, he released the single “Outside Today”, which peaked at number 31 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The song became the lead single for his debut studio album Until Death Call My Name (2018) which peaked at number 7 on the US Billboard 200.
In October 2019, Gaulden released the single “Bandit” (with Juice Wrld), which became his first top-ten single. A week later, he released AI YoungBoy 2 (2019), which debuted at number one on the Billboard 200. In April 2020, he released 38 Baby 2, becoming his second chart-topping project on the Billboard 200. Later that year, Gaulden released his second studio album Top (2020), which followed suit as his third chart-topping project in less than a year. In September 2021, Sincerely, Kentrell (2021) was released during his incarceration, topping the charts again, making him the third artist besides 2Pac and Lil Wayne to have a chart-topping album while incarcerated. In August 2022, he released his fourth studio album, The Last Slimeto (2022), which marked his final studio album with Atlantic Records. In late 2022, Gaulden signed to Motown and released his fifth album, I Rest My Case in January 2023. Months later, in April 2023, he released his sixth full-length studio album, Don’t Try This at Home.
Despite his success, Gaulden’s career has been marked by a long history of legal issues that began in 2016, and has released multiple projects during his incarcerations.
Early life
Kentrell DeSean Gaulden was born on October 20, 1999, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He broke his neck while wrestling as a toddler, the injury requiring a head brace until the spine healed. The brace left permanent scars on his forehead. Gaulden was raised mainly by his maternal grandmother, Alice Gaulden, due to his father being sentenced to 55 years in prison. He dropped out of high school in ninth grade. While in juvenile detention for a robbery charge, he began writing lyrics for his debut project.
After he was released, Gaulden’s grandmother died of heart failure in 2010 and he was sent to a group home in which he noted that he’d get beat up:
“I used to get beat up inside the group home for no reason, the other boys would put their hands on me, and I would look up like, ‘Why are you hitting me, bro? What’d I do?’ It made me discover another side of me that I never glorified or liked. I found out how to be the person that you don’t want to do that with. [Before then], I never understood all the evilness or wrong because I was showered by so much love from this one person.”
He later moved in with his friend and fellow Baton Rouge rapper, OG3Three Never Broke Again. The two then used acts of criminality to begin to pay for studio time.
