Young L, the Berkeley rapper and producer best-known as the driving force behind the Pack, has reportedly passed away. Thus far, there has been no official confirmation of Young L's death, but Bay Area rap legend Too $hort, the man who originally served as the Pack's mentor, shared the news of his passing on Instagram last night. If anyone would know, it's Too $hort. At press time, Young L's cause of death is unknown. He was 39.
The Pack formed in Berkeley in 2005, when all the members — Young L, Lil B, Stunnaman, and Lil Uno — were all teenagers. Lil B was the one who later became an internet cult hero, but Young L was the real mastermind. His crisp, minimal, playful production style worked in the context of the hyphy wave that dominated Bay Area rap at the time, but it felt generationally different. He held back on everything, building entire tracks from just a few elements without losing any of the central energy or the funky twitchiness. His sound came to influence the jerkin' style that came out of LA a few years later, and I have to imagine that a producer like DJ Mustard picked up a lot of ideas from his work.
The Pack figured out their sound while working together at Young L's house, and they released their debut mixtape Wolfpack Muzik Vol. 1 in 2005. "Vans," their icy 2006 ode to cheap skater shoes, got regional airplay on California rap radio, and Too $hort signed the group to his Jive imprint Up All Nite. "Vans" became a national hit, and the Pack's debut EP Skateboards 2 Scrapers came out by the end of the year. Their full-length debut Based Boys followed in 2007, and Young L handled most of its production.
Based Boys wasn't a commercial success, and the Pack were mostly inactive by the time they released their 2010 follow-up Wolfpack Party, as Lil B had already launched his deeply strange and influential solo journey. Young L went solo, too. His 2011 single "Loud Pockets" advanced his idiosyncratic production style, and it worked as its own kind of anthem. He released lots of mixtapes — sometimes solo, sometimes in collaboration with his Pack friends Lil B and Stunnaman. In 2012, Young L and Soulja Boy released a collaborative tape called Mario & Domo Vs The World.
Back when I wrote a weekly mixtape column, I reviewed Young L tapes like 2013's Convulsion and 2014's MVP. Young L also produced for artists like Too $hort, Mac Miller, Prodigy, Kool AD, and Bladee. He was a true original with an incredibly cool and advanced sound, and he had more to offer. This is a serious, painful loss. Check out some of Young L's work below.
