YoungBoy Never Broke Again

Raised by his grandmother in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, YoungBoy Never Broke Again (born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden in 1999) started recording with a Walmart-bought microphone as a teenager, writing tracks for his early mixtapes while in juvenile detention. It’s a path that would continue to cast shadows on his career. After a flurry of increasingly strong mixtapes (most notably 2017’s AI YoungBoy), Gaulden made his major-label leap with 2018’s Until Death Call My Name, only to be derailed by further arrests. He bounced back later in the year with a string of similarly titled EPs (4Respect, 4Loyalty, 4Freedom, 4WhatImportant) that continued to chart his sound, featuring collaborations with Young Thug and Kevin Gates. Aggressive but soulful, Gaulden’s music feels like a natural step in the evolution of Louisiana hip-hop, echoing both Boosie Badazz (a collaborator) and Gates (who went so far as to get a tattoo of Gaulden’s face) as well as the serious, sing-songy feel of classic Cash Money. In the 2020s, Gaulden charged ahead with projects like Top, Sincerely, Kentrell, The Last Slimeto, I Rest My Case, and Don’t Try This at Home, among others. Gaulden spent much of 2024 in a Utah county jail, and though it slowed his prolific release schedule, he nevertheless released I Just Got a Lot on My Shoulders that year. 2025 saw three drops, including the fan gift More Leaks, before a presidential pardon that May closed the chapter on a five-year legal battle. The freedom (and newfound patriotism) showed: MASA (Make America Slime Again) triumphantly arrived that July, with 30 tracks that swung from bouncy Louisiana street rap to power ballads. DESHAWN followed just two weeks later, and in January 2026 he opened the new year with 30 more tracks on Slime Cry.