NBA YoungBoy

Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, known professionally as YoungBoy Never Broke Again or NBA YoungBoy, is an American rapper, singer, and songwriter. Gaulden released eight mixtapes from 2015 to 2017, and garnered a regional following for his work.

Kentrell Gaulden's meteoric rise from Baton Rouge street tapes to streaming behemoth began with relentless mixtape output between 2015 and 2017, establishing the prolific work ethic that would define his career. His friendship with Lil Baby cemented a Louisiana-to-Georgia trap pipeline that dominated the late 2010s, while his simultaneous ascent with Juice WRLD during 2019-2020 created an unspoken rivalry between two artists who understood that volume and emotional vulnerability were the currencies of the streaming age. Founded Never Broke Again as his own imprint under Atlantic's distribution, YoungBoy transformed a regional following into one of hip-hop's most-played catalogs—a feat that speaks less to innovation than to an almost inhuman consistency, pumping out albums and projects with the frequency of a regional mixtape rapper despite superstar status.