YoungBoy Never Broke Again dropped “Finest” on his own YouTube channel a full day before it reached any streaming service, and the Rozay Evans-directed video, set inside a church with dancers spinning fire, is circulating again this weekend in a popular hip-hop forum on Reddit.
The Baton Rouge rapper, born Kentrell Gaulden, surprise-released the song and video on May 22, 2025. Streaming platforms got it on May 23, as a promotional single for his album MASA.
A church, fire dancers and a tribute
The visual places Gaulden inside a church in a posture of repentance while backup dancers stage a fire performance around him. It also folds in footage and photographs from his own life, and it closes with a tribute to Quando Rondo, an artist signed to his Never Broke Again label.
That contrast is the whole point of the clip. The fire is spectacle; the pews and the archive footage are confession. It mirrors a track that critics heard as one of his most exposed: a slower, soulful beat in place of the usual pressure-cooker production.
The people behind the track
- Producers: Cheese (Jason Goldberg) and JB Sauced Up (Jeremy Bradley Jr.).
- Writers: Kentrell Gaulden, Jason Goldberg and Jeremy Bradley Jr.
- Mixing: Henry8; Cheese also handled mastering.
- Labels: Never Broke Again and Motown.
- Length: 3 minutes 21 seconds.
Gaulden is also credited with engineering his own vocals, a detail that fits an artist known for recording at a relentless pace.
How it landed
The music press singled it out. One major US chart publication’s critic named “Finest” the best song on MASA and called it “a gut-wrenching song, and one of YB’s best in years.” Another review described a sense of “the walls [are] closing in” on the rapper.
On the charts, “Finest” peaked at No. 22 on the US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs list and at No. 16 on the Bubbling Under Hot 100, the 25-place chart of songs just outside the main Hot 100. In plain terms, that means it sat roughly 116 places from the top of the all-genre singles ranking at its best, while cracking the top 25 of the rap and R&B chart.
Why a 2025 video is back
YoungBoy’s fan base treats his YouTube channel as the main event, which is why a video released there first keeps resurfacing whenever listeners trade favorites. His long list of collaborations keeps him in rotation too; he appears on Toosii’s Platinum Heart 2 alongside Hunxho. Fans who want more of the genre can browse our Entertainment section.
The official video remains on YoungBoy Never Broke Again’s YouTube channel, where it was first posted on May 22, 2025.
Further reading
Image: getmahesh, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
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