Kodak Black is Pompano Beach's 18-year-old Project Baby, a street rapper who came up in the low-income Golden Acres Developments and shot to fame this past year after earning a cosign from Drake. (Though, he's not eager to credit the tastemaking hip-hop star with his success. "It didn't get me where I am today. My music did," he told us back in December.) A born hustler, Kodak has consistently earned critical acclaim for his mixtape projects, was recently featured in the New Yorker, and has been called "one of the biggest new artists in the game right now" by XXL magazine. Pretty impressive for a kid who first set up shop recording out of the back of a trap house and is currently making plans for his senior prom. Lately he's been making the talk radio rounds, confessing he'd like to ask out Kylie Jenner or rapper T.I.'s daughter Zonnique. With a new mixtape in the works for a June release and his first album dropping around Christmas, the future looks bright for South Florida's latest breakout rapper. But if he plans to make it to prom this year — not to mention all 19 stops on his U.S. tour with Lil Uzi Vert this summer — our Project Baby needs to stay out of trouble. The rising star, whose real name is Dieuson Octave, was recently arrested on weapons and marijuana charges.
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