Prison rappers
Rappers and prison sentences – still a better love story than Twilight. At least if you want to put it a bit cynically. Because the intersection between rap stars and ex-prisoners is actually relatively high. Many well-known names who have become stars through music have already gained experience in jail. A few were even known from prison.
There are plenty of examples of this, both nationally and internationally. In this country, the most prominent example is still Xatar. After his spectacular gold robbery and imprisonment, he built a rap career and a record company out of his cell. This is remarkable precisely because he has built his career proactively.
Because usually most prison rappers – inevitably – rather passively succeed. The 187 street gang ensured that Gzuz became a legend in the rap scene while he was in custody. When he got out he was the face of his crew.
NBA Youngboy
In the USA, the cult of prison rappers is even taken to extremes than in Germany. Bobby Shmurda was in prison for 7 years and had only one real single shortly before that. But it was precisely this single that became so long-lasting and well-known that Bobby was an established star after his imprisonment.
Now the next rapper is making a big breakthrough while he’s behind bars. NBA Young Boy has been in jail for half a year and has literally become better known every day. On the net, more and more people are demanding that President Biden pardon him, similar to what ex-President Trump did at Kodak Black.
Temporary high point of his prison fame – his album reached number 1 on the Billboard 100. While in custody, only two rappers did it before him, Tupac and Lil Wayne. NBA YoungBoy is the most successful prison rapper since Tupac. In the first week alone he was able to sell more than 138,000 copies of his album “Sincerely, Kenrell”.
Here are two more Instagram posts from DJ Akademiks on this topic:
