Born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden, YoungBoy Never Broke Again (aka NBA YoungBoy) is a rapper who channeled the pain of a difficult childhood into unflinching lyrics that made him famous before he was even out of his teens. During a six-month stint at a juvenile detention center on a robbery charge, the Louisiana native began writing lyrics for his first mixtape, Life Before Fame. He was just 15 years old when it dropped in 2015.
The rapper was raised by his maternal grandmother, Alice Gaulden, after his father was sentenced to 55 years in prison for a botched robbery attempt and his mother moved away. When Alice died of heart failure in 2010, YoungBoy ended up in a group home where he endured beatings from the other young residents. He was eventually taken in by his older brother, fellow rapper OG3Three, who worked three jobs to pay for YoungBoy's first music video.
The three distinct scars on the rapper's forehead are from the halo brace he had to wear at 4 years old after he broke his neck while wrestling with a friend.
In between releasing mixtapes, YoungBoy was in and out of jail for various crimes. In 2016, the 17-year-old rapper was arrested in Austin, Texas, on an attempted murder charge for allegedly firing a gun during a drive-by shooting that took place in his hometown of Baton Rouge. He pled guilty on a lesser charge of one count of aggravated assault with a firearm and was released from prison in May 2017, one week before dropping his single "Untouchable."
The music industry didn't view YoungBoy's legal troubles as a bad risk, with Atlantic Records signing him to a five-album contract around the time of his 2016 ordeal. He issued his debut album,
Until Death Call My Name, in 2018. Its lead single, "
Outside Today," alludes to his rising fame as he hides out in his house from the paparazzi. Staying indoors soon became a necessity for the rapper, who was put on house arrest the following year after violating his probation. But once again, his label didn't have to worry - using his home as his studio, he kept recording new music, including the song "House Arrest Tingz."
YoungBoy earned his first Top 10 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 with "
Bandit," a collaboration with the Chicago rapper Juice WRLD. The single was also notable for being Juice's last song as a lead artist; the 21-year-old died from an accidental drug overdose just two months after its October 2019 release.
The rapper found himself in trouble with the law again in 2020 when he was arrested in Baton Rouge on federal charges related to manufacturing and distributing drugs, and possessing stolen firearms. In 2021, he was hit with more charges in Los Angeles for having an unregistered firearm as a convicted felon. As a result, his third album, Sincerely, Kentrell, was released while he was in prison later that year. It debuted at #1 on the Billboard 200, making him the third artist behind Tupac Shakur and Lil Wayne to have a chart-topping album while incarcerated.
Shortly after Sincerely, Kentrell dropped, YoungBoy was released on bond and put on house arrest while awaiting trial for his weapons charges in Baton Rouge. His lawyers successfully argued he should serve the time under surveillance at a remote Utah mansion, where he'd be less likely to get into trouble. But he still managed to surreptitiously pioneer a prescription fraud scheme that involved masquerading as a doctor on phone calls with pharmacies to procure drugs. In 2024, he pled guilty to fraud and drug charges and no contest to dozens of others. He avoided jail time with the felony charges being reduced to misdemeanors and he was ordered to pay a $25,000 fine. But he was still sentenced to 23 months in prison followed by 60 months of probation relating to his crimes in Louisiana. Not long after his release in April 2025, he received a presidential pardon from Donald Trump.
By the time he was 26 years old in 2026, YoungBoy had already fathered 13 children with eight different women. His first child, son Kayden, arrived in 2016 when the rapper was 16 years old.
While on house arrest at his Utah mansion in 2023, he married his longtime girlfriend Jazlyn Mychelle Hayes, who was already the mother to two of his children, daughter Alice Nora and son Klemenza Tru. They welcomed another baby girl, YoungBoy's 13th child, in February 2026.
YoungBoy's fame grew outside of the media spotlight, without any splashy profiles or cushy gigs to boost his image. Before landing a record deal, he quietly built up his brand on YouTube with simple videos about the perils of street life. Thanks to his prolific output, he became one of the video platform's highest-viewed artists of any genre by 2019, averaging 8 million global views per day. By 2026, the numbers climbed to 19 billion total views on his official channel.
In 2023, the 23-year-old rapper became the youngest artist in history to chart 100 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 after the single "Big Truck" debuted at #100. This came a year after being recognized by the Recording Industry Association of America as the youngest artist to achieve 100 RIAA Gold/Platinum Certifications.
