EST Gee

Clarksdale, a scholarship, and the long way round

George Albert Stone III was born on 11 May 1994 in Louisville, Kentucky, and grew up in the Clarksdale Projects before the family moved to the south-east of the city. He left St Xavier High School in 2012 on a football scholarship to Indiana State University, where he studied communications, then transferred twice — first to Sac City College, then to Stephen F. Austin University — before dropping out in 2016. A brief spell with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in the Canadian Football League followed in 2017. That was the end of the football plan.

A 2016 drug trafficking arrest brought a four-month house arrest sentence, and it was during that confinement, watching Lil Baby perform, that Stone decided to rap. He began as Big Gee before settling on EST Gee — the initials stand for Everybody Shines Together, the name of the crew that still supplies most of his guest verses. His first song, 'Stains', went up on YouTube on 17 December 2017.

The early tapes came fast and locally: El Toro in June 2019, Die Bloody that August, Ion Feel Nun in March 2020, I Still Don't Feel Nun that December. None of them charted. All of them established the delivery — low, unhurried, more reporting than performing — that has not really changed since.

Two years that changed the ceiling

In January 2021 Stone signed to Yo Gotti's Collective Music Group through Interscope. Bigger Than Life or Death arrived on 21 July 2021, reached number seven on the Billboard 200 and was certified gold; Bigger Than Life or Death, Pt. 2 followed on 3 December and peaked at 65. The run continued with Last Ones Left, a joint project with Detroit's 42 Dugg released on 8 April 2022, which also hit number seven, and then his debut studio album proper, I Never Felt Nun, on 16 September 2022, which peaked at eight.

Those four records are the commercial spine of the catalogue and still supply most of the material that gets shouted back at him in a venue. '5500 Degrees', 'Get Money' and 'Special' are the three songs setlist archives show him performing most often across documented shows.

What the writing is actually about

The biographical facts behind the records are grim and well documented. In September 2019 Stone was shot five times and retained only part of the vision in his left eye. His mother died of leukaemia in March 2020; a week later his brother was killed in a Louisville shooting. He has never built a redemption narrative out of any of it, which is part of why the music reads the way it does — the detail is delivered flat, without underlining.

That restraint is what reviewers keep returning to. HotNewHipHop's assessment of the 2026 album put it plainly: he is at his best when the bars are understated and the specifics in the lyrics carry the weight. It is also why the catalogue rewards volume rather than reinvention — each project is another instalment of the same ledger.

Volume as the strategy: 2023 to 2026

The pace has not slowed. Mad arrived on 17 March 2023 and peaked at 25; El Toro 2 followed on 18 August 2023 at 57. I Aint Feeling You, released on 31 January 2025, reached 97. My World, a 14-track mixtape put out on 13 June 2025 through CMG/Interscope with Yo Gotti as its only guest on 'PABLO', reached 155 and was framed by Stone as something for the fans ahead of a tour announcement.

February 2026 brought a change of company. Not a Chance in Hell, a joint album with Sacramento's Mozzy, was released on 20 February through EMPIRE — 12 songs in 29 minutes, with BloodHound Q50 the sole outside feature on 'ASIDE'. The pairing made obvious sense: two writers from different coasts working the same material of loss, consequence and who stayed.

The chart numbers have drifted down since 2022 while the output has increased, which is the honest shape of where he sits — a fixture rather than an ascendant, with a following that buys tickets and streams reliably without pushing him back into the top ten.

Bigger Than the Devil, September 2026

The current record was announced on 28 August 2026 and released on 11 September through CMG/Interscope. It runs to 20 tracks and has so far peaked at 86 on the Billboard 200, also appearing on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart for the week of 26 September 2026.

The guest list is deliberately close to home. YFN Lucci and SKRT appear on 'TRANQUILIZER', EST SkiMike on 'YA DIGG', and 86Snot, EST Spit and EST4Nikk on 'YOU KNOW IT' — a roster drawn almost entirely from his own crew and the Louisville scene around it. The rollout began in July with 'Call Spitta', followed by 'Sometimes' and 'Supreme Sanders', with videos for 'YOU KNOW IT' and 'YA DIGG' released on 31 August and three more — 'HALL OF FAME', 'SKRRT' and 'BIRTH OF A ROYAL CHILD' — on release day.

Reception has been steady rather than transformative. On The Scene NY described the album as less a victory lap than a roll call from the ground that made him, with dark production leaving room for the delivery. HotNewHipHop made the same point from the other direction: the record does not ask him to reinvent anything, it lets him double down.

The October run

The touring pattern has shifted markedly between 2025 and 2026. The Welcome To My World tour covered more than 34 North American dates, opening in Pittsburgh on 18 July 2025 and closing in Cleveland on 30 August, through rooms including House of Blues New Orleans on 1 August, House of Blues Houston on 2 August and House of Blues San Diego on 7 August.

The follow-up is a European run announced with the album: 11 dates opening at Paradiso in Amsterdam on 14 October 2026 and finishing at Soup Kitchen in Manchester on 30 October, taking in Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Paris, Cologne, Copenhagen, London and Southampton. Seven of those are currently listed as on sale. The venues are small by the standards of his American theatre dates — Rock Café in Prague, The Brook in Southampton, Soup Kitchen in Manchester — which makes this a first proper canvassing of a European audience rather than a victory lap, and no support acts have been named.