We’re entering a new era of YoungBoy Never Broke Again as the chart-topping rapper is ready to reveal another side of himself. Undoubtedly, he has gone through a transition for some time—much of which has been brought on by fame and legal troubles. His time under house arrest in Utah has been an eye-opening experience for the Baton Rouge star. He sat down with Billboard at his residence and shared insight into his career, including his compulsion about releasing music.
He told the outlet he has over 1,000 songs in the vault, which is believable if you consider just how much music he shares. “It’s a disease,” said YoungBoy about releasing music. “Literally, I cannot help myself. I tell myself sometimes, ‘I’m not going to drop until months from now,’ but it’s addictive.”
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YoungBoy added that he wished he had been aware of “how unhealthy this was for me” when he was younger. “Whatever type of energy I had inside me, I would’ve pushed it toward something else,” he also said. “The music is therapy, but I can’t stop it when I want. And the lifestyle is just a big distraction from your real purpose.”
Additionally, It seems that YoungBoy will be—or already has begun to—make a shift in his music. He’s straying away from violent content and revealed that he felt as if he was being used by the industry. “I’m at a point now in my life where I just know hurting people is not the way, and I feel very manipulated, even at this moment,” he shared. “I was set on being the greatest at what I did and what I spoke about. Man, I was flooded with millions of dollars from the time I was 16 all the way to this point, and I woke up one morning like, ‘Damn. They got me. They made me do their dirty work.’ Man, look at the sh*t I put in these people’s ears.”
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“I think about how many lives I actually am responsible for when it comes to my music,” YoungBoy further said. “How many girls I got feeling like if you don’t go about a situation that your boyfriend’s bringing on you in his way, you’re wrong? How many people have put this sh*t in their ears and actually went and hurt someone? Or how many kids felt like they needed to tote a gun and walked out the house and toted it the wrong way? Now he’s fixing to sit there and do years of his life that he can’t get back.”
Further, these days, YoungBoy is facing criticism for his painted nails of goth makeup. It’s something that both he and wife Jazlyn Mychelle enjoy doing in their solitude, but the social media world has been unforgiving. “I’m very curious to see how the world goes about me now,” said the rapper. “They listened because of who I supposedly was or showed I was and what I rapped about. Now it’s nail polish and face paint, and the music is not the same.”
“What if they don’t like me now?” YoungBoy also questioned. “You can’t be on top forever, you know? Because 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. I’m only going to get more groovy from here..”
[via]