NBA YoungBoy is one of the rising young stars of the hip-hop world. Despite his young age of 22 years, YoungBoy has already been name-checked by Snoop Dogg as a hot new talent and had a single, “Outside Today” hit Billboard’s top 100. He seems like a perfect subject for a music documentary, and fans went wild when a trailer popped up online recently advertising a new Netflix documentary titled “The Story of Top.” Unfortunately, it looks like that excitement is premature.
Though professional in appearance, “The Story of Top” is actually just a very well-done fake with footage from actual Netflix edited in with footage of YoungBoy to make a very convincing trailer for a non-existent film.
Although the trailer is fake, NBA YoungBoy most definitely isn’t. Born Kentrell DeSean Gaulden in Louisiana in 1999, YoungBoy earned a cult following based on the six mixtapes he’s delivered in 2015, 2016, and 2017. His first studio album, Until Death Call My Name, was released the following year. He’s collaborated with Meek Mill, 21 Savage, Lil Baby, Lil Wayne, and Snoop Dogg himself. “WusYaName,” his collab with Tyler the Creator, even earned the rising star his first Grammy Nomination this year.
As for the fan film, it appears to be just that. An album made by anonymous fans and put out online. Whether it was intended as a troll or to hype YoungBoy, only the creators know for sure. It seems to be derived from fan art published on the Reddit page dedicated to the artist by user OnyxOnOpium a month ago. The YouTube video was posted by what appears to be an NBA YoungBoy fan page called 10K Squad.
So no, don’t hold your breath if you were looking forward to streaming an NBA YoungBoy doc on Netflix this weekend, but who knows, maybe the curiosity over the fake may plant a few ideas in the heads of Netflix’s studio execs. Stranger things have happened on the internet.