Young Boy Never Broke Again Review
Young Boy Never Broke Again Review the internet’s busiest music nerd, and it’s time for a review of the new Young Boy Never Broke Again project Sincerely Cantrell. This is the third solo commercial record from Louisiana.
Rapper Young Boy never broke again. Or simply young Boys has been releasing a really steady stream of tapes, albums, and singles ever since signing with Atlantic Records in 2018, after which he dropped his breakthrough debut. And with that success has come mainstream appeal and also hip-hop cred, yes,
but also a really strong cult following and meme infamy. You only need to spend an hour on music Twitter before you might stumble across an endless string of post-Iron Rock fan accounts with Young Boys photos as their PFP,
continuously spewing pro-Young Boy, memes and catchphrases. Well, anyway, I don’t think you could have called me a Young Boy fan up until this point, but I can’t deny that his latest no-feature project over Here, is his most mature and fully realized yet.
His elastic and expressive vocal leads have advanced so much since the days of his AI Young Boy mixtape, and he also seems more focused on song structure as well as introspective reflections on his personal life than many rappers who are dropping 20-plus songs on a project.
And yeah, while there are definitely some short filler cuts in the tracklist here and there, there’s certainly something about Sincerely Cantrell, from aggression to depression. And aspiration Young Boy does a great job of channeling his emotions through his vocals and bars.
And even at this relatively high point of success, he still sounds cogent, sharp, and hungry. If the wave of the trap he wrote in on continues, his work ethic is going to make him unstoppable over the next several years. But my praise for this project kind of ends there, because despite Young Boys’ obvious raw talent, there’s not a lot going on here in terms of a greater vision of this project. Sure,
vocally, Young Boy does bring a strong presence and energy.
to a lot of these songs, but his drive doesn’t really seem to translate in any other way as this record continues. The trend of overly bloated trap records with way too many tracks, sameysounding songs and hooks all the way from front to back.
The production is also very OneNote with the same perks and Midi pianos you’ve been hearing over and over on everybody’s records for the past two years. Now, granted, there are some standout bangers and choruses here.
The song Bad Morning is a really fiery opener. Violent cuts like 50 Shots and Smokes Strong are busting at the seams with this manic energy that reminds me of Waka Flock of Flame. And there are some really potent themes of isolation and living for his kids on the song Toxic Punk that is kind of moving across this project.
Young Boy sounds equally comfortable over bops and ballads, but the relative variety isn’t enough to overcome the crushing redundancy that the 21 core tracks of this project bring. Maybe a more focused series of cuts
with young boy’s best and most potent verses would have been better. Not to mention, the beats here don’t really give him a creative edge over the ocean of artists wrapping over pretty much the same stuff.
Now, I’ll state clearly that this is all really a matter of my personal taste, because obviously, at the end of the day, all of this is working for a young boy. Like, the numbers don’t lie. The music he makes clearly hits. The question is, will it be in five years when trends change a little bit and there’s a wave of younger boys hitting streaming services?
Now, at that point, I hope he stays afloat because I think he has a voice and an intensity that’s worth hearing, but that sort of staying power is going to require a level of versatility and creative ambition that he’s not yet showing on this project.
I’m feeling a strong four to a light five on this one. Zoom. Have you given this record a listen? Did you love it? Did you hate it? How would you rate it? You’re the best. You’re the best.
