The first NBA YoungBoy tour in five years is three months away and it’s already a circus. For one thing, Donald Trump got involved: In an effort to get dummies to forget everything else going on, he pardoned the influential Baton Rouge rapper, whose weapon charges had limited his travel. For another, EBK Jaaybo, one of the major openers on the lineup, was arrested on gun and drug charges in Arkansas and his name was scrubbed from ticket sites. The rumor mills are now debating whether he will appear or not. Jaaybo, like YoungBoy five years ago, is a rap phenom in his early 20s who has spent too much of his life institutionalized. He makes plain-spoken, brutal Stockton drill—a grief-stricken Northern California rap scene of the 2020s, where the bleakness of the music reflects the conditions of a small city screwed over by local politicians. Besides Kendrick Lamar, he is arguably the hottest rapper in California right now, with popularity that’s as much about the vivid music as the fetish for gangsta rap authenticity.
Jaaybo’s new mixtape, Don’t Trust Me, comes on the heels of a singles run—“F*ck Everybody (Free Maxx),” “The Biggest G,” “Homebody,” none of which are on the tape—as obsessed with revenge as a Charles Bronson flick. Don’t Trust Me blows up the hushed menace of the late Young Slo-Be into blunt diss records full of spooky Skrilla-core choirs, hyphy drums, and bloodshed, all turned up to the speaker-crunching max. It’s visceral and bone-chilling music that makes Stockton sound like a gladiator match. “I fucked it up in the north, them niggas brunts, I could name a few victims/I told the bitch that trollin’ gang would catch up to him, he ain’t listen,” he raps on the miliant intro “Suicidal.” On the EBK posse cut “Top Rank Gz,” he says, “Embarrassed that his homie died a bitch so he didn’t post him,” with a mean flow that recalls DB tha General’s 2010s take on Bay Area mobb music.
There’s hardly a lyric that isn’t about death. That may seem like the norm for drill, but the way Jaaybo drags out the final syllable of nearly every line forces you to sit with the stomach-turning realities of the genre’s stories: Kids getting caught in the crossfire on “It’ll Happen to You,” an enemy pimping minors on “Exposing Me,” the casual homophobia of “Stand Over Music.” It’s not so noticeable when you listen to it one song at a time, like many will, but when you run through 21 straight tracks of neighborhood war and destruction, it feels almost as voyeuristic as watching fanmade street politics documentaries on YouTube. In fact, Jaaybo’s songs include so many name drops and searchable references that it appears as if the music is drafting off the popularity of beef content. It’s missing imagination; it’s missing style. He doesn’t have Drakeo the Ruler’s inventive flows or YoungBoy’s hardened melodies, the stylistic elements that make those rappers’ best tapes feel like they’re not just about death, but the feeling of being surrounded by death.
