Latest Release
- 12 APR 2024
- 1 Song
- Let's Go (Remix) - Single · 2024
- Cut It (feat. Young Dolph) - Single · 2015
- Bulletproof · 2017
- Role Model · 2018
- High Class Street Music 5: The Plug Best Friend · 2015
- Dum and Dummer · 2019
- Barter 6 · 2015
- Rich Slave · 2020
- Paper Route Frank · 2022
- Mr. Davis · 2017
Essential Albums
- Young Dolph and Key Glock had so much fun on their first collaborative album, 2019’s Dum and Dummer, that they went back in for a sequel. Add Dum and Dummer 2 to the sparsely populated club of second editions that miraculously hold up to the original. Part 2 is a heaping 20 tracks deep and chock-full of the hilarious lifestyle quips that are easy work for Dolph, like on “Cheat Code” where he raps: “You a square-ass n***a like Theo (Huxtable)/The money call, it’s time to G-O/My weed the same colour as Dino (Flintstones)/Shooting dice with my 95-year-old grandmother at the casino.” Production is handled mostly by Bandplay, a producer whose ability to craft beats that are consistently trunk-rattling yet somehow sound nothing like each other is potentially the dummest.
- The title of Young Dolph's Rich Slave instantly sets up a kind of duality that directly confronts the legacy of racism and capitalism central to America. Dolph's catalogue is filled with songs that hinge on self-made narratives about how he got to the money by any means necessary, and this album is no exception. But under the provocation of its name, such themes feel more contradictory than ever. Tracks like “I See $'s” and “Death Row” contrast wealth with misery or at least an ongoing ambivalence about the true costs of financial success. Even when the lyrics are at their most triumphant (“Used to sign for the packs, now I sign T-shirts and posters/Drop 500 racks to drop the top on that new roadster” as on “Hold Up Hold Up Hold Up”), the rapper's matter-of-fact cadence sounds as if he's unfazed. That tension comes to a head on “The Land”, which makes explicit the wages of being Black in America, wealthy or not, and on the title track: “All them diamond chains, he look like a rich slave.” Still, even with all of this unease lingering, the album isn't nearly as weighty as it might suggest. Dolph has always had a sardonic sense of humour that sets up one-liners as quotable as they are comedic and offsets his darker musings (“Lately I've been hearing a lot of voices in my head/It woke me straight up out my sleep and said go buy a Lam”). “CrayCray” is standard s**t-talk, while “RNB”, which features a spirited verse from Megan Thee Stallion, brims with flirty bravado. These flashes of levity hearken back to earlier Dolph tracks, but Rich Slave stands as his most explicitly introspective work. The pair of skits early in the album may offer the most illuminating glimpse into his mindset, as both trace the rapper's attempts to reconnect with the past—his own and that of his hometown, Memphis. The conversations between a family friend and Dolph are candid and humorous, with the elder sharing memories of Dolph's father; taken in context, they ground the album and suggest a quest for something deeper than just menace and boasts.
Artist Playlists
- Lighting up trap anthems with his unshakable confidence.
- 2022
- Mr Foster, Davis Chris & M Dot Taylor
More To Hear
- “Hold Up Hold Up Hold Up,” let’s take a moment to remember Dolph.
- The rappers discuss their project 'Dum and Dummer 2.'
- The artists discuss 'Dum and Dummer 2.'
- The artists on "Sleep With The Roaches."
- The rapper breaks down his project 'Rich Slave.'
- Young Dolph breaks down his project Rich Slave.
- The MC gets personal, plus A$AP Ferg talks Floor Seats.
About Young Dolph
Young Dolph transformed street savviness into hard-hitting rap backed by big bass and ominous production that matched his deep voice and Memphis upbringing. Born Adolph Thornton, Jr. in Chicago, 1985, Young Dolph debuted in 2008 with the Paper Route Campaign mixtape, and founded his own scrappily named label to distribute his music, Paper Route Empire. His 2014 breakthrough—from the equally menacing and motivational High Class Street Music 4—was “Preach”, a Zaytoven-blessed club anthem about not trusting anyone. 2017's Bulletproof, a minimal-yet-booming LP anchored by the enemy-taunting “100 Shots”, was a response to one of many attempts on his life. Ever shrewd and resourceful, he teamed with his trap-rapping cousin and signee Key Glock for 2019’s Dum and Dummer, an unflinching flex of a joint set that followed a string of solo albums documenting his against-all-odds success. In 2020, Dolph zoomed out for the moodily produced Rich Slave, which took shots at the intersection of American capitalism and racism while underlining his progress in spite of it all—the ruminative “I See $’s” explicitly lays out his wealth-driven path into pop culture. Dolph was shot and killed on November 17, 2021, at age 36.
- FROM
- Chicago, IL, United States
- BORN
- 27 July 1985
- GENRE
- Hip-Hop/Rap