NBA YoungBoy is experiencing a rebirth.
The 23-year-old rapper has been cooped up at his home in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is currently on house arrest. He lives with his new wife Jazlyn Mychelle, whom he married at the beginning of 2023, and their two children, 17-month-old daughter Alice and his newborn son, Klemenza.
In a new interview with Billboard, the reclusive star opens up about his personal life and reveals that he plans to be officially baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ the Latter-day Saints after his ankle monitor is removed.
His introduction to the Mormon faith began when he received a visit from Mormon missionaries. He turned them away the first time they came by his house in late 2022, but let them in the next time they visited.
“I wanted help very badly. I needed a friend. And it hit me,” he recalled. “It was just cool to see someone with a different mindset that had nothing to do with business or money — just these wonderful souls.”
The missionaries discuss The Book of Mormon with him and he credits them for helping him “make sure my heart is in the right space.”
“Even when my negative thoughts come back, when I do want to tell them, ‘Not today,’ I just don’t let nothing stop it,” he said.
The prolific rapper, who released eight full-length projects last year, dropped his first for Motown Records, I Rest My Case, earlier this month. He admits that he has an addiction to dropping music.
“It’s a disease,” he said. “Literally, I cannot help myself. I tell myself sometimes, ‘I’m not going to drop until months from now,’ but it’s addictive. I wish I knew when I was younger how unhealthy this was for me. Whatever type of energy I had inside me, I would’ve pushed it toward something else.”
However, the music has helped him through hard times. “The music is therapy, but I can’t stop it when I want,” he said. “And the lifestyle is just a big distraction from your real purpose.”
