Top

Since he began releasing music in 2015, Louisiana rapper YoungBoy Never Broke Again maintained a near-constant stream of output. In 2020 alone, he added two new mixtapes to a catalog that already included more than a dozen entries, and followed with his second proper studio album, Top. The constant development of ideas honed over all of those projects comes into a new arena on Top, with a sprawling 21-song track listing that sees YoungBoy reaching new levels of versatility and expression. The album starts strong with the pleading melodic autotune of "Drug Addiction." It's one of several songs where YoungBoy rides plaintive instrumentals with sung/rapped bars about emotional pain and times of struggle. Along with several songs in this somber, reflective style, Top also holds aggressive drill tracks like "Dead Trollz," old-school-flavored trap beats like "The Last Backyard...," and storytelling lyrics that ricochet through switched-up flows on tracks like "Kacey Talk." The production and variance of the instrumentals on Top are largely complimentary to YoungBoy's talent for shapeshifting lyrical delivery. There are only two guest features on the album, but both are from legends: Lil Wayne giving a relentless spatter of syllables on "My Window" and Snoop Dogg sauntering his way through the G-funk-informed slow creep of "Callin." The countless songs YoungBoy Never Broke Again made leading up to Top sharpened both his skills and his vision, and here the rapper reaches a new peak. The material is some of his strongest, managing commercial accessibility while giving a more authentic view of his personality than anything he's done before. ~ Fred Thomas