In 2018, he was arrested before a concert at a Tallahassee, Florida, nightclub over allegations of assault, weapons violations, and kidnapping. YoungBoy is currently under investigation for allegedly assaulting a man at Texas studio. It happened with the barber, and it will continue to occur throughout my attempts at interviewing him over the next three weeks. When you spend any amount of time with YoungBoy, you begin to realize that, at any given moment, his peace is only seconds away from being broken. When I point out that he seems calm and patient, YoungBoy responds in a telling manner. As he waits for a replacement barber to arrive, he slouches on a sofa, blowing billows of weed smoke at the ceiling and occasionally looking over his shoulder to see what’s happening each time his crew bursts into laughter. “I ain’t got patience,” he elaborates, his voice barely louder than a whisper.įollowing the incident with the barber, YoungBoy has settled back into his status as the most stoic person in the room. He just isn’t “into all of that mentally.” It’s not that he doesn’t like the press, he tells me. His personal life, full of arrests and headline-grabbing controversy, has been just as eventful as his music career, but he barely speaks about it on the record. YoungBoy constantly avoids media opportunities, awards shows, public appearances, and drawn-out album rollouts. And he’s accomplished it all without conforming to industry standards. He has now tallied a total of 47 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, the same as J. Since he entered the game in 2015, the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, artist has established himself as one of the most successful and prolific rappers of his generation, garnering a cult following and more than 8 million subscribers on YouTube. Keeping up with YoungBoy Never Broke Again, born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, has always been an extreme sport. With his publicist’s blessing, he agrees to let me enter the room and sit beside him on the sofa for a quick conversation. While they wait, YoungBoy and his crew isolate themselves in the dressing room, only opening the door for bathroom runs and business calls. YoungBoy refuses to work with the barber, so a substitute is called to take his place. “You can’t be doing that, man,” a member of YoungBoy’s crew whispers outside the dressing room. He usually requires outsiders to surrender their phones before being in his presence, but the message hadn’t been relayed to the barber this time. He’s waiting to get a shape-up, but that plan falls apart when his barber tries to sneak a selfie without YoungBoy’s permission. By the time he sets foot in the office, he still hasn’t uttered a single word.Ī small camera crew is putting the finishing touches on the set for today’s photoshoot, but a 10-minute wait quickly grows to an hour because YoungBoy hasn’t settled in just yet. He keeps these guards up as he walks through the building and methodically makes his way to a dressing room. Protected by the physical barrier of his clique standing around him, he also shields himself by staying quiet and avoiding conversations with anyone outside his inner circle. Riding the elevator a few minutes later, it’s clear YoungBoy has walls up. The moment of reflection is broken when the 21-year-old superstar is spotted by a group of pedestrians, motivating him to duck into the lobby of Complex’s office building. YoungBoy doesn’t budge, standing still for a few moments as he surveys his surroundings. And on a quiet stretch of West 43rd Street, YoungBoy’s crew files out of the vehicle, looking for clues about where to go next. Manhattan is rarely as still as it is on this afternoon, a bittersweet result of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. But you wouldn’t be able to tell that from the empty expression on his face as he emerges from a black SUV in Times Square. It’s a breezy day in late September, and YoungBoy Never Broke Again has just secured his second No.
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