Young Bleed, the Louisiana rapper who became one of No Limit Records’ success stories, has died. His eldest son, Ty’Gee Ramon Clifton, shared the news in an Instagram Reel, stating that the musician died on Saturday, November 1. Young Bleed had been hospitalized for a brain aneurysm following an appearance at a Verzuz event featuring members of No Limit and Cash Money Records. Young Bleed was 51 years old.
Young Bleed was born Glenn Reed Clifton Jr. in Baton Rouge, and he started rapping when he was nine years old. He sold his own tapes as a teenager and, in the mid-1990s, joined Concentration Camp, the local hip-hop group founded by fellow Louisiana rapper C-Loc. It was Young Bleed’s verse on C-Loc’s “A Fool” that got the attention of No Limit founder and label head Master P, who remixed “A Fool” for the soundtrack to his 1997 film I’m Bout It, changing the title to “How Ya Do Dat,” and signed Young Bleed to No Limit.
Young Bleed’s major label debut, My Balls and My Word, arrived the following year. The album sold half a million copies and topped Billboard’s Hip-Hop/R&B chart. For its follow-up, 1999’s My Own, Young Bleed jumped to No Limit’s distributor, Priority Records. He was let go from his contract, however, shortly thereafter. The rapper temporarily rebranded to Young Bleed Carleone’s and, in 2002, dropped Vintage as the first release on his own label, Da’tention Home Records.
Across the rest of his career, Young Bleed remained prolific, continuing to hop between labels while becoming a mentor to a new generation of hip-hop. He put out two projects—Rise Thru da Ranks from Earner Tugh in 2005 and Once Upon a Time in Amedica in 2007—on C-Bo’s West Coast Mafia Records, as well as several full-length collaborations with younger rappers. In 2010, Young Bleed also founded the record label Trap Door Entertainment, where he released four total albums leading up to the last of his lifetime, 2022’s Dare’ Iza’ God.
“Preserved could easily describe Young Bleed’s loyalty to the reliable sound of his earliest work,” David Drake wrote in the Pitchfork review of the musician’s 2011 album, which came out on Tech N9ne’s Strange Lane. “Bleed emphasizes the individualism, agency, and nobility of the street soldier, weaving a universal story of hustle and struggle through implied, writerly details and a sixth sense for style.”
