The YBN Crew’s origin story is already the stuff of internet legend, even though the group formed just five years ago. Nick Simmons was born in Birmingham and met Jay Bradley, of Galveston, while playing Grand Theft Auto V. They bonded out of a shared love of rap music and live-streaming video games, eventually recording their first freestyles in XBOX Live group chats as YBN Nahmir and YBN Almighty Jay, respectively.
In 2017, Nahmir and YBN Glizzy met Cordae Amari Dunston online, and Dunston immediately became the elder statesman of the crew. While the group found viral success with Nahmir’s “Rubbin Off the Paint,” the vision they presented on last year’s YBN: the Mixtape was that of a three-headed monster led by Cordae.
With The Lost Boy, Cordae makes good on the promise hinted at on YBN: The Mixtape, turning in a front-to-back redemption tale. It is Cordae at his most humble. It’s occasionally corny and self-serious. But its 15 tracks show a star slowly finding his voice and bursting into the mainstream.
Through this lens, the Chance the Rapper-assisted “Bad Idea” makes sense on multiple levels. Over an interpolation of Roberta Flack and Donny Hathaway’s “Be Real Black For Me,” Cordae takes cues from Chance on the chorus, cooing “Don’t you cry/It’ll be alright.” It’s a ghost-of-Christmas-past tale: Cordae imagines what it would be like to never come home again, the adoring family members he would never see. There’s strength in community, he seems to be saying, and it’s a message that permeates the record.
On first single “Have Mercy,” Cordae turns his gaze outward. Over a “Mask Off”-inspired flute sample and 808, Cordae begins, “Sweet lord please have mercy/Baby Jesus please save us.” It’s a call to join, and in the hands of a less-deft rapper, this sort of proselytizing would come off as saccharine at best, invasive at worst. But Cordae seems to come only from a place of appreciation, bursting with joy at a newfound life that formerly looked bleak.
The Lost Boy splits its time between thankfulness and victory laps. On “RNP,” Cordae basks in the glow of success over a sermonizing Anderson .Paak chorus and bouncy J. Cole production: “Smiling ‘cause I’m young, rich, black, and I’m handsome/Not to mention wealthy/Ass on the healthy.” It is, undoubtedly, a dumb line, and the track is one of the record’s clear misses, mistaking puns for cleverness and energy for quality.
On the flip side, he sounds surprisingly assured next to Pusha-T on “Nightmares Are Real.” He goes toe-to-toe with the veteran, even encouraging Push to find grace in the building blocks of his career: “I can tell you how I started in this rap shit/Eighth grade backflipping on a mattress.”
Despite the glossy guestlist, The Lost Boy remains Cordae’s show. At 15 songs, it could have used an edit, another voice in the room telling him to tone it down. But still, it’s an assured debut. Cordae raps about life with the patience of a pro but the wide-eyed wonder of a newborn. It’s a delicate balance, and he occasionally stumbles, but it’s promising to even watch him try.
