NBA Youngboy

Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, born on October 20, 1999, is a prominent American rapper known professionally as YoungBoy Never Broke Again, or simply NBA YoungBoy.

He gained popularity by releasing eight independent mixtapes from 2015 to 2017, and developed a regional fanbase. In 2017, he signed with Atlantic Records and released the singles “Untouchable” and “No Smoke,” which marked his first entries on the Billboard Hot 100.

In January of the following year, his single “Outside Today” became his first to reach the top 40 of the chart and received quadruple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). It served as both his mainstream breakthrough and the lead single for his debut studio album, Until Death Call My Name (2018), which peaked at number seven on the US Billboard 200, despite mixed critical reception.

His 2019 single, “Bandit” (with Juice Wrld), became his first song to reach the top ten of the Billboard Hot 100. In the following week, he released the commercial mixtape AI YoungBoy 2 (2019), which debuted atop the Billboard 200. The release of its follow-up, 38 Baby 2 (2020), and his second album, Top (2020), made Gaulden the first rapper to peak the chart thrice within a year.

Gaulden’s third album, Sincerely, Kentrell (2021), released during his incarceration, peaked the chart and became the third project by an imprisoned artist to do so, behind Tupac Shakur’s Me Against the World (1995) and Lil Wayne‘s I Am Not a Human Being (2010). His fourth album, The Last Slimeto (2022), peaked at number two on the chart and served as his final release with Atlantic. Gaulden then signed with Motown to release his fifth and sixth albums, I Rest My Case (2023) and Don’t Try This at Home (2023), which received mixed critical and commercial reception.

Despite his success, Gaulden’s career has been marked by a long history of legal issues that began in 2016. Nonetheless, he has maintained a prolific output during his incarcerations.