Last Updated: July 11, 2026
| Born | 20 October 1999 (age 26 years), Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States |
|---|---|
| Full name | Kentrell DeSean Gaulden |
| Children | 11+ Children |
| Religion | Interested in Mormon Faith |
What religion is YoungBoy Never Broke Again?
YoungBoy Never Broke Again, also known as NBA YoungBoy, is an American rapper and singer who has shown a lifelong interest in Christianity. In 2023, he made a noteworthy but unverified investigation of Mormonism (the LDS Church). He was raised in a Christian environment in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He has mentioned singing in a church choir as a child and has referred to himself as “a child of God” in interviews.
Gaulden established himself as one of the most commercially successful rappers of his generation after building a loyal fan base through a series of independent mixtapes before signing with Atlantic Records and Artist Partner Group. His breakthrough came with “Outside Today,” which became his first top-40 hit on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned 4× Platinum certification from the RIAA. His debut studio album, Until Death Call My Name (2018), introduced him to mainstream success, while “Bandit” with Juice WRLD became his first Billboard Hot 100 top-10 hit. His commercial dominance continued with AI YoungBoy 2, Top, and Sincerely, Kentrell, all of which debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200, making him one of the few rappers to achieve multiple chart-topping projects within a short period. He later released The Last Slimeto, I Rest My Case, Don’t Try This at Home, I Just Got a Lot on My Shoulders, MASA (Make America Slime Again), and Slime Cry, extending one of the most prolific album runs in modern hip-hop.
Gaulden has sold more than 109 million RIAA-certified units in the United States, surpassed 15 billion YouTube views, became the youngest artist to reach 100 entries on the Billboard Hot 100, and set the record as the most RIAA-certified rapper with 126 certified titles. He founded Never Broke Again LLC, home to artists including NoCap and Quando Rondo, and has received nominations from the Grammy Awards and BET Hip Hop Awards, alongside honors from ASCAP and BMI.
2023 mormon interest
In early 2023, rapper NBA YoungBoy (Kentrell Gaulden) expressed significant interest in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often referred to as the Mormon Church) while serving house arrest in Utah. He initially turned them away but later welcomed them, studied the Book of Mormon, and said it helped him get his “heart in the right space.”
In a February 2023 Billboard interview, he expressed plans to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints after his ankle monitor was removed. Years later, NBA YoungBoy did not publicly acknowledge that he was indeed baptized into the LDS Church.
Early life
Kentrell DeSean Gaulden was born on October 20, 1999, in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to Sherhonda Gaulden and Jeffery Staden. As a toddler he broke his neck while wrestling, which required a head brace until his spine healed; the brace left permanent scars on his forehead. He was raised mainly by his maternal grandmother, Alice Gaulden, because his father was sentenced to 55 years in prison. Gaulden dropped out of Scotlandville Magnet High School in Baton Rouge in the ninth grade. While in juvenile detention for a robbery charge in late 2014, he began writing lyrics; he served six months in that detention and was released in 2015. After his release, his grandmother died of heart failure in 2010 (according to some sources, this date is inconsistent with the timeline of his juvenile detention, but the event itself is consistently reported), and he was placed in a group home where he said he was frequently beaten, which he described as pushing him to adopt a harder demeanor. He later moved in with his friend and fellow Baton Rouge rapper OG3Three Never Broke Again, the two carried out criminal acts to pay for studio time.
Career beginnings
Gaulden first made music with a microphone he bought from Walmart when he was 14, and he released his debut mixtape, Life Before Fame, in 2015 at age 15. He followed that with a series of local projects, including Mind of a Menace, Mind of a Menace 2, and Before I Go. In December 2015 he began what was described as a “song-for-song rap beef” with fellow Baton Rouge rapper Scotty Cain, in which both artists exchanged death threats in songs. His October 2016 mixtape 38 Baby, which featured Boosie Badazz, Kevin Gates, Stroke Tha Don, and NBA 3Three, became his breakout project and introduced him to a wider audience. That same year he released Mind of a Menace 3 on November 4, 2016.
Mainstream dominance
In November 2016, Gaulden was arrested in Austin, Texas, on suspicion of attempted first-degree murder in connection with an alleged drive-by shooting; while detained in East Baton Rouge Parish, he re-released Before I Go and Mind of a Menace 3. He was released from prison in May 2017 after taking a plea deal and posting bail, and a week later he released the single “Untouchable.” In July 2017 he posted a video for “41” that featured cameos from Meek Mill, Young Thug, 21 Savage, Boosie Badazz, and Yo Gotti. In August 2017, after being scouted by Mike Caren, he signed a five-album deal worth about $2 million with Artist Partner Group and Atlantic Records while keeping his own Never Broke Again label, and in August 2017, he released AI YoungBoy, which entered the Billboard 200 at number 24, marking his first charting project. “Untouchable” peaked at number 95 on the Billboard Hot 100 and “No Smoke” at number 61. His next mixtape, Ain’t Too Long, was released in October 2017 and entered the Billboard 200 at 173.
Gaulden’s mainstream breakthrough came with “Outside Today,” released in January 2018, which reached number 31 on the Hot 100 and became his highest-charting single at that point. His debut studio album, Until Death Call My Name, was released in April 2018 and peaked at number 7 on the Billboard 200 despite mixed reviews. After a reloaded version with Offset and Lil Uzi Vert, he continued releasing a string of projects, including the 4Respect 4Freedom 4Loyalty 4WhatImportant compilation and the mixtapes Decided and Realer in 2018. By January 2019 he had been on YouTube’s Top Music Artists list in the United States for 101 consecutive weeks, making him the most-watched musician across all genres on the platform at that time, largely due to his habit of releasing music regularly and exclusively on YouTube.
His collaboration with Juice WRLD, “Bandit,” released in October 2019, reached number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100 and became his highest-charting single ever at that point. In October 2019 he released AI YoungBoy 2, which debuted at number 1 on the Billboard 200, earning 110,000 album-equivalent units in its first week and becoming one of the top ten biggest streaming debuts of 2019. In 2020 he released Still Flexin, Still Steppin (number 2), 38 Baby 2 (number 1), and his second studio album, Top (number 1), making him the first rapper in Billboard 200 history to reach number 1 three times in ten months. In 2021, while incarcerated, he released Sincerely, Kentrell, which also debuted at number 1, making him the third artist besides Tupac Shakur and Lil Wayne to have a number-one album while imprisoned. Those chart achievements, along with over 109 million digital copies sold in the United States and more than 15 billion YouTube views.
Criminal activity and legal issues
Gaulden’s criminal record began in late 2014, when he was arrested for robbery and served six months in a detention center in Tallulah, Louisiana. In November 2016, U.S. Marshals arrested him before a concert in Austin, Texas, accusing him of jumping from a vehicle and firing on a group of people in South Baton Rouge; he was charged with two counts of attempted first-degree murder and remained in jail until May 2017. He pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of aggravated assault with a firearm and was sentenced to a suspended ten-year prison term with three years of active probation.
In February 2018, he was arrested at The Moon nightclub in Tallahassee, Florida, with an out-of-state warrant from Georgia for alleged assault, weapons violations, and kidnapping; hotel footage showed him assaulting his former girlfriend, and he was released on $75,000 bail on March 15, 2018. In March 2019, Gaulden and Quando Rondo were sued by a man who said he worked as their bodyguard/tour manager/DJ for assault, battery, and emotional distress following an incident at a Florence, South Carolina, concert in December 2018; the lawsuit alleged the two rappers assaulted him when he tried to manage a crazed fan, causing a cracked tooth and other injuries.
In May 2019, during his probation period, Gaulden was involved in a shooting in Miami in which a shooter in a black Cadillac Escalade opened fire, injuring his girlfriend and killing a bystander; after returning fire, Gaulden’s charges for the shooting itself were dismissed, but he violated a special condition of his probation by being in the company of Ben Fields and Trulondrick “Boomer” Norman and was sentenced to 90 days in jail, banned from performing for 14 months, and placed on house arrest with electronic monitoring for the remainder of his probation. His original probation for the 2016 attempted murder case was terminated in December 2019, but five days later he was sentenced to one year of probation after pleading guilty to simple assault in the case involving his ex-girlfriend.
In September 2020, Gaulden was among 16 people arrested in Baton Rouge on federal charges, including distribution and manufacturing of drugs and possession of stolen firearms; his lawyer said there was no indication he had guns or drugs on him at the time of arrest. In March 2021, federal agents in Los Angeles arrested him, executing a warrant stemming from the September 2020 Baton Rouge arrest; after a search involving a police dog, he was booked on federal firearms charges, and in October 2021, he was released on $1.5 million bail. At trial for the California federal firearm charge in July 2022, he was found not guilty. He was also found guilty in the Baton Rouge federal case and sentenced to 23 months in prison followed by 60 months of probation; after over three years in federal custody, including house arrest, he was officially released on probation in April 2025 and shortly afterward was granted a presidential pardon by Donald Trump. A separate 2024 arrest in Utah on drug and weapon charges occurred after he allegedly breached house arrest conditions; he faced multiple felony and misdemeanor charges, including possession of a dangerous weapon by a restrained individual and engaging in a pattern of unlawful activity.
Personal life
Gaulden has eleven children with nine different women; two of his sons, Kayden and Kacey, were featured in the music video for his song “Kacey Talk.” He married Jazlyn Mychelle Hayes, his longtime partner and the mother of two of his children, in January 2023.
Through his philanthropy, he has given away cash in his hometown, funded school supply drives, donated turkeys and toys through the NAACP, and supported local shelters and food events, often while under house arrest or incarcerated.
