YoungBoy Never Broke Again says that he’s considering a Mormon baptism after spending time with missionaries in Utah. The 23-year-old rapper explained how he meant the religious group while under house arrest in the snow-covered state during a new cover story for Billboard. Usually, YoungBoy’s security team only permits three pre-approved visitors at a time, leading him to initially turn the missionaries away. However, he eventually let them come inside his home.
“I wanted help very badly. I needed a friend. And it hit me,” he explained, before adding, “It was just cool to see someone with a different mindset that had nothing to do with business or money — just these wonderful souls.” He added that their visits help him “make sure my heart is in the right space.”
“Even when my negative thoughts come back, when I do want to tell them, ‘Not today,’ I just don’t let nothing stop it,” he further said. He then revealed that he intends to officially join the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints after he’s off house arrest.
YoungBoy admits that the change in lifestyle may affect the direction of his music. His latest record, Rest My Case, intentionally featured fewer mentions of guns than his previous works. “What if they don’t like me now?” he considered while referring to his fans. “I’m not changing. I will not be provoked, I will not be broken. And I’m not going back to who I used to be. Accept it or not — I ain’t going back.”
Even the music video for YoungBoy’s latest single, “Hi Haters,” opens with a quote from the Latter Day Saints tome. It reads, “Now, as my mind caught hold upon this thought, I cried within my heart: O Jesus, thou Son of God, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness, and am encircled about by the everlasting chains of death”
Check out YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s cover story for Billboard below.