NBA Youngboy has one of the best rap albums of 2019. AI Youngboy 2 has elements that no rap album, and few albums period, to drop this year have—replay value, different songs for multiple situations and transcendent sound.
As a preface, I would like to state that before this album I was in no way a Youngboy fan. In fact, I've been in multiple situations back home, which is about an hour away from Youngboy's home, where I feared my negative opinion of the Baton Rouge rapper would result in me getting stomped out by a barrage of G Nikes and Acid Washed denim.
AI Youngboy 2 is different than past Youngboy projects, as the 19 year old displays the most versatility on any one project of his entire career.
The results speak for themselves. Despite no press run and a good amount of the project being leaked early, AI Youngboy 2 is expected to sell north of six digits in the first week alone.
To illustrate just how diverse this album is I'll take you through my week.
With three midterms and a test, I experienced a whirlwind of different mental states this past week. AI Youngboy 2 had a song for every one of them.
"Make No Sense" was my pre-exam tunnel music, as its bouncy production, catchy hook, aggressive ad-libs and creative delivery from Youngboy gave me all the confidence I needed to bullshit short answers for a class I habitually skip.
After shockingly running into questions that I had no idea about, the heartbeat-like production matched with the raw lyrics and genuine emotion from Youngboy on "Lonely Child" let my ears hear what my heart was feeling.
Youngboy opens up on the track to offer an apology to his mother, admit his struggles with eating and sleeping, talk about missing his father and express how much he misses his child but not being able to call his baby mother. My midterms suddenly didn't seem like that big of a deal.
Throughout all my studying, aspects of my life unrelated to school were being neglected. One of those aspects was my girlfriend, but the modern Sonnet 116 that is "Ranada" reminded me about the beauty of love and led me back into my girl's arms. We made one year this past week. Thank you, Youngboy.
Along with the above standout tracks, Youngboy still did what Youngboy does best—bring contagious energy to songs effortlessly.
Tracks like "Self Control", with its potentially classic hook "smoking Dro, cause I need it, so I can be calm instead of dangerous when you see me," and "Head Blown" are two more examples of Youngboy's development as an artist, as he switches from delivering a hard verse into crafting melodies for the hook like it's second nature.
Only a handful of artists could create a project as good as AI Youngoy 2 with essentially no features("Outta Here Safe" being the lone exception) and keep an audience engaged from start to finish after multiple listens.
With this project, Youngboy proved to the world he's more than a Youtube sensation; he's one of the best young artists rap has to offer.
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