The latest salvo from Baton Rouge rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again, aka NBA YoungBoy, entered the Billboard 200 album chart at No. 1 this week.
“Sincerely, Kentrell,” with a title based on YoungBoy’s real name, Kentrell Gaulden, narrowly edged out superstar rapper Drake’s “Certified Lover Boy,” which spent the previous three weeks parked atop the Billboard chart.
According to various media reports based on numbers from MRC Data, Billboard’s data collection service, “Sincerely, Kentrell” amassed 137,000 “equivalent album units” for the week ending Sept. 30, compared to 135,000 for Drake.
“Equivalent album units” uses a formula to equate on-demand streaming totals to actual album sales. The weekly total for “Sincerely, Kentrell” included more than 186 million on-demand streams, plus 10,000 actual album sales.
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The 21-year-old YoungBoy scored the most popular album in the country this week despite being unable to promote it in person, as he is currently incarcerated in Louisiana awaiting trial on federal gun charges.
In the heyday of New Orleans’ No Limit Records and Cash Money Records, New Orleans rappers routinely topped the national charts. Back in 2000, Mystikal’s “Let’s Get Ready” bumped Madonna’s “Music” from the top slot.
But thanks in large part to YoungBoy, the power base for commercial Louisiana rap has shifted upriver to Baton Rouge.
“Sincerely, Kentrell” is the fourth release by YoungBoy to hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in the past two years.
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He was 14 when he famously launched his career as a gritty, up-from-the-mean-streets rapper armed with a YouTube account, a microphone reportedly purchased at Walmart and a willingness to be his raw, troubled self on that microphone. Within a couple of years, he had a recording contract with music industry powerhouse Atlantic Records.
Taking advantage of how streaming services and YouTube often reward voluminous content, YoungBoy has released songs, mixtapes, albums and videos prolifically.
His mixtape “AI YoungBoy 2” hit No. 1 in October 2019. Another mixtape, “38 Baby 2,” topped the Billboard 200 in May 2000. His album “Top” hit the top spot on the chart in September 2020.
He is the personification of the “underground” hip-hop star. He operates far outside the popular music mainstream, with relatively little radio airplay and no presence at TV award shows or in ad campaigns.
Instead, his audience seeks him out online. According to The New York Times, YoungBoy’s songs have been streamed more than 6 billion — that’s billion, with “b” — times in the past year. That total includes 1 billion video streams, many by his nearly 10 million YouTube subscribers.
In the same time period, he has only received 55,000 spins on radio.
Fans have embraced and supported his music passionately on social media despite — or, for those who perceive his bad boy persona as authenticity, because of — his long history of legal woes.
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In February 2017, Gaulden pleaded guilty to aggravated assault with a firearm in connection with a nonfatal drive-by shooting on Kentucky Street in Baton Rouge in November 2016. The shooting occurred two days after Gaulden turned 17.
He received a suspended 10-year prison sentence and three years of probation.
In 2018, he was arrested on a domestic violence charge following an incident involving a girlfriend. He eventually pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery.
On Mother’s Day 2019, Gaulden was involved in a shooting in Miami that left a bystander dead.
Gunmen opened fire on the rapper and his entourage outside the Trump International Hotel; his girlfriend was wounded. Members of his crew, who were legally armed, returned fire, fatally striking a bystander. Miami-Dade police ruled Gaulden’s associates acted in self-defense.
Because of his previous history and conditions of his probation, Gaulden ended up serving 90 days in jail in 2019 and served out his probation on house arrest.
In September 2020, just days after “Top” became the most popular album in the country, Gaulden and 15 other people were arrested during a video shoot in Baton Rouge on various gun and drug possession charges.
In December 2020, with no charges yet filed by the East Baton Rouge District Attorney’s Office, state District Judge Tiffany Foxworth ordered the Baton Rouge Police Department to return more than $40,000 in cash, a $300,000 cashier’s check, and two diamond necklaces and a diamond ring that had been confiscated from Gaulden during the September arrest.
But on March 10, a federal grand jury indicted Gaulden on charges that he possessed a firearm as a felon and that he possessed a firearm not registered to him in a federal database. He was arrested by federal agents in Los Angeles on March 22 after a brief car chase and returned to Louisiana.
In April, a Baton Rouge federal judge, Chief U.S. District Judge Shelley Dick, agreed with prosecutors that Gaulden should remain in jail until trial.
The judge stated that Gaulden was “inclined toward reckless, illegal, dangerous behavior” and no combination of bond conditions could ensure the community’s safety.
His fans, meanwhile, have ensured that his music remains as popular as ever. And prison, it turns out, is not an insurmountable impediment.
As The New York Times reported, YoungBoy recorded “Still Waiting,” a bonus track on “Sincerely, Kentrell,” over the phone from jail.
Staff writers Kelly P. Kissel and Joe Gyan Jr. contributed to this report.