Luke Benjamin is an older, but still young, boy at In our dystopian present, time, and timekeeping, is moneyβhealthcare is no right. Regardless, Youngboy proliferates streaming numbers and YouTube plays like our government does nuclear warheads.
His a Bayou coronation has only been delayed only by jail time and the pan-opticon policing of a small racially-divided city. As Boosie and Kevin Gates before him, Youngboy is an uncommon talent from an unforgiving locale, plagued by anxieties of place and trust that far outstrip the ennui of mostly his peers.
The blending of these modes reveals YoungBoy at his most potent, a tempest of naturalism and bravado in half-sung speech. Part of his appeal, undeniably, is the hyperreality of his content, a baby-faced teenager waving uzis and plainly rapping about murder. The exaggerated imagery gestures towards damning realities, like an alleged attempted murder and the weight of an adult sentence before eighteen.
Charged, released, and now free for the moment, YoungBoy is a star at a crossroads, a world of opportunity available to him if he can circumvent the pitfalls of his position and placehood.
Equally present as apparitions from his past is his belief in his ability β exceptionalism fueled by the desire to see his family and friends safe and well-fed. His initial post-prison release is very much in this vein, a part-triumphal, endearingly hopeful single.
