Another day, another dose of XXL Freestyles. This time marks the arrival of YBN Cordae, who opts for brevity with a thirty-second acapella joint. "Never will I ever forget beginnings," he spits. "A country boy who humble and thankful for this position, but never satisfied or complacent my intuition, is tellin' me longevity is the race that you finish." For the most part, Cordae keeps true to form, stringing together multisyllabic bars with a practiced touch. Check it out below.
"I was born in North Carolina," opens Cordae. "I lived in a trailer park in South Carolina. I lived in the trenches in Suitland, Maryland. I even lived in the suburbs for my last two years of high school...I've seen all walks of life, all types of people I've interacted with." He also makes sure to announce his pick for GOAT, standing firmly behind Jay-Z. Yet there's plenty of praise to go around, and Cordae rattles off his favorites with a healthy dose of Old Head Energy. "You got Nas, you got Big L, you got Eminem, and Dr. Dre," he says. "Those are my top five musical influences."
"Big L, his wordplay, the way he rhymes every single syllable effortlessly," says Cordae. "The punchlines and things, that was always something that attracted me. Jay-Z, he got like ten classic albums. Blueprint, I was like two years old throwing up my diamonds."
Insofar as his own style, Cordae explains what we might come to expect on his upcoming The Lost Boy. "I feel like I'm my own unique sound," says Cordae. "I don't think there's nobody that sounds like me, for real for real. I'm just getting better as an artist, perfecting my craft." Check out his full interview and freestyle now, and sound off. You think he's about to have the best verse in the cypher?
