Kodak Black

Roots in Pompano Beach

Kodak Black was born Dieuson Octave on June 11, 1997, in Pompano Beach, Florida, and was raised by his mother, Marcelene Octave, a Haitian immigrant, in Golden Acres, a public housing community in the city. He started rapping in elementary school and, as a teenager, recorded at a local trap house after class, later saying he read dictionaries and thesauruses to build his vocabulary.

He has named Boosie Badazz, Gucci Mane and Chief Keef among his influences and grew up alongside childhood friend Lamar Jackson, who became an NFL quarterback. The Instagram handle he chose — Kodak Black, a reference to pictures — became his professional name, and in 2018 he legally changed his name to Bill Kahan Kapri.

Mixtapes and the Atlantic Records deal

Performing first as J-Black with the local group Brutal Youngnz beginning in 2009, and then with The Kolyons, Kodak Black released his debut mixtape, Project Baby, in December 2013. Heart of the Projects followed a year later and Institution in December 2015. The freestyle-style anthem No Flockin, drawn from that period, became his calling card and later returned to the charts as a sleeper hit on the Billboard Hot 100.

In October 2015, a video of Drake dancing to Skrt pushed the song — and Kodak Black — into wider view, and he signed with Atlantic Records that same month. Critics quickly framed him as a raw new voice in South Florida street rap: writing around his 2016 XXL Freshman selection, The Ringer's Justin Charity called him one of the most exciting street rappers to debut in recent years and traced his sound to Gucci Mane, Boosie Badazz and Lil Wayne.

Breakthrough and Painting Pictures

Momentum built quickly in 2016. The mixtape Lil B.I.G. Pac became his first project to chart on Billboard's R&B/Hip-Hop Albums survey, his guest verse on French Montana's Lockjaw reached the same chart's singles ranks, and in June XXL named him one of ten artists on its 2016 Freshman Class cover alongside 21 Savage, Lil Uzi Vert, Lil Yachty and Denzel Curry.

On February 17, 2017, he released Tunnel Vision, which peaked at No. 6 on the Hot 100 and became his first top-10 hit. Painting Pictures followed on March 31, 2017, opening at No. 3 on the Billboard 200 even as he sat in jail on a probation violation; his label staged a New York listening event for press and tastemakers the night before release. The companion mixtape Project Baby 2, issued that August, climbed to No. 2.

Dying to Live and a Grammy nod

After the Valentine's Day 2018 mixtape Heart Break Kodak, Kodak Black released his second album, Dying to Live, on December 14, 2018. It opened at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 with 89,000 equivalent album units — the bulk of them streaming-driven — and was led by Zeze, featuring Travis Scott and Offset, which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100. His Best Rap Song Grammy nomination had arrived a year earlier, in November 2017, for co-writing Cardi B's Bodak Yellow, which contains a sample of No Flockin.

The chart victory did not settle his legal life. In 2019 he was arrested on firearm-related charges and pleaded guilty to federal counts of making false statements on gun purchases, and he was later sentenced to prison while also resolving a border weapons case. His third album, Bill Israel, was released on November 11, 2020, while he was still incarcerated.

Commuted sentence and the Super Gremlin era

President Donald Trump commuted Kodak Black's federal sentence on January 19, 2021, and he returned to music within days, releasing Last Day In and Every Balmain in early 2021. Later that year, Super Gremlin — issued through Sniper Gang's Halloween mixtape Nightmare Babies — caught fire; by 2022 it had climbed to No. 3 on the Hot 100, and it also drew nominations for Song of the Year at the 2022 BET Hip Hop Awards and Favorite Hip Hop Song at the 2022 American Music Awards.

The song powered Back for Everything, his fourth album, released February 25, 2022. It debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and Top Rap Albums charts, sending him to No. 1 on the Billboard Artist 100 for the first time that March. Earlier in 2022 he had appeared on Silent Hill from Kendrick Lamar's Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers, a credit that carried him onto the Album of the Year nomination ballot at the 2023 Grammys. Kutthroat Bill: Vol. 1 closed his Atlantic tenure in October 2022.

Capitol Records and later albums

Kodak Black moved to Capitol Records after finishing his Atlantic obligations. Pistolz & Pearlz, released in May 2023, was his final album for Atlantic; the largely solo When I Was Dead arrived as a surprise in November 2023 on his new label home. He continued issuing mixtapes and singles through 2024 before returning with Just Getting Started on October 31, 2025, a 20-track album released through Vulture Love/Capitol that features Pharrell Williams, Chance the Rapper, Gunna and Lil Yachty.

Sound and reception

Kodak Black's music sits in the lineage of Southern gangsta rap and trap, delivered in a loose, slurred drawl that has sometimes been filed under mumble rap. Writing at the time of his XXL Freshman selection, The Ringer praised No Flockin as self-portraiture without a conventional hook and placed him as an heir to Gucci Mane, Boosie Badazz and Lil Wayne within Southern hip-hop's sprawled lineage.

Reviewers have repeatedly noted the tension between his comic public persona and the bleak, confessional detail of his verses. That duality has defined his public life as well: he has remained a fixture of Florida's rap scene while moving in and out of courtrooms, and he has addressed incarceration directly in songs and in albums released while he was behind bars.