Breaking through with a viral hit when he was just 17,
YBN Nahmir went from being an online gamer to a rap star virtually overnight. Along with friends
YBN Cordae and
YBN Almighty Jay,
YBN Nahmir made up the core membership of the sprawling
YBN collective, with all three of the main players rising to enormous success around the same time in 2017. Singles and videos streamed in the millions and hit the Billboard charts, as did 2018's
YBN: The Mixtape, an album-length release that collected the brightest output of the collective's early days.
Born and raised in Birmingham, Alabama,
YBN Nahmir was
Nick Simmons before he founded the
YBN crew in 2014. Simmons' own music and the
YBN collective both grew out of a community of teenaged online gamers, and Simmons' fan base initially formed around his presence as a gamer that sometimes included him freestyling during games of Grand Theft Auto. Eventually, he developed his exuberant and combative style -- one inspired by major Bay Area figures such as
E-40 and
Mozzy -- and started uploading tracks to social media platforms. Things broke wide open for
Nahmir with his 2017 single "Rubbin Off the Paint." In less than a month, the song's video had been viewed over 20 million times, and by the end of the year it had hit the Billboard Hot 100 and peaked at number 46.
Vince Staples took note of the song and issued his own remix version, furthering
Nahmir's already viral visibility. New singles followed quickly, with tracks like "I Got a Stick," "No Hook," and "Bail Out" all doing numbers, but the brief and confrontational "Bounce Out with That" was the strongest follow-up to his initial hit, reaching the Billboard charts and being streamed hundreds of millions of times.
In April 2018, he inked a deal with Atlantic Records and in the fall of that year released
YBN: The Mixtape with the other members of the collective. The release proved as successful as their respective singles and included guest spots from
Wiz Khalifa,
Chris Brown,
Cuban Doll, and other established stars. He continued to issue singles into the next two years, including "Baby 8" and "Fuck It Up" with
City Girls and
Tyga in 2019 and "Talkin'" and "2 Seater" featuring
G-Eazy and
Offset in 2020. ~ Andy Kellman & Fred Thomas