Yelawolf speaks on hip-hop, country, Slumerica, and wylin' out

[Elano]

Co-signed by everyone from Bun B and Slim Thug to Travis Barker, the similarly tatted up Yelawolf is the latest MC to try to bridge the gap between southern rap and country rock. But putting songs with titles like “Billy Crystal Meth” on your debut album for Interscope is definately more gully than good ole boy. URB caught the rising MC on tour with Wiz Khalifa and let him tell us about…everything.

On Trunk Muzik 0-60:
Basically, we’ve taken five of the fan favorites from Trunk Muzik and put them along with 0-60. We didn’t want to alienate the people that had fun with Trunk Muzik, know what I’m sayin’, the sound of it. We wanted to keep it consistent … keep the 808s and all that shit in. We went out and worked with Jim Jonsin on a record called “Billy Crystal Meth” and it’s fucking ill! We just kept it real gutter, know what I’m sayin’, just kept it going. The release is November 23rd and I’m signed with Interscope now.

And it’s just been a crazy ride, you know. We put out Trunk Muzik and a video for “Pop the Trunk”. Alongside the cosigns from Raekwon, Bun B, Juelz Santana, and Slim Thug, people really started turning heads and giving me a chance. When I got that opportunity, man, you know it started really making traction. People started connecting with it in a real way, you know. So I’m just so excited, man, to finally have touched on a project that’s connecting, you know, and I think it’s been a long road of bumping my head, man, you know, and doin’ records that didn’t connect and learning how to really carry my culture, you know, and carry my story instead of just getting on a record and rappin’ for the sake of rappin’. I mean, I feel like that the fans I’m making now are so deeply connected to it because there’s nothing materialist that they’re connecting with at all. It’s not the cars. It’s not clothes. It’s not hype. It’s something that they’re hearing in the lyrics and something in those songs that they connect with from their youth or their own story or even a story that they’re intrigued by, even if they can’t specifically relate to it they’re intrigued by the story of it, and that’s what I’ve always wanted so badly, you know what I’m sayin’? I’ve just wanted to express, man, you know, this crazy fucking life that I’ve lived. Single mom, 16, you know, fuckin’ full on, my mom was a rock star, you know what I’m saying? Cocaine, fucking biker parties and shit, you know? I grew up on a real crazy level around the music game, because my mom had dated people in the music industry, so you know, it’s like I was surrounded with young people, older than me obviously, but young people, so I saw a lot of crazy shit. Plus my mom’s a firecracker and alongside her, man, I just witnessed the life God intended me to see. And I’ve been so hungry to tell a story about it, you know. Music became that avenue. I’m a painter also. I’m a skateboarder. But music took a front seat. [Laughs] My managers call me Joe Dirt all the time because I got so many stories. And I don’t know whether it’s that I just remember them all or I do have a lot of crazy stories. I find myself in situations to this day that motherfuckers look at me like, ‘Damn man, every time we get with you we end up in a situation.’ In my opinion, it’s just an energy that God put in my life that involves situations and incidents for the sake of just telling a story. I mean, I believe that, you know what I’m saying? That’s my gift. Explaining it so that people can not have to deal with it, in a way. Or deal with it (period). Either way. Just come to one of my shows and wyle out.

On the energy of hip hop:
I know there’s kids out there who can’t relate, some of them can’t relate specifically to some trailer park white boy shit, but they’re drawn to that energy. It’s such a missing element in hip hop, it has been for so long… I mean, I used to go to Triple Six Mafia shows and mosh pits break out. I’ve crowd surfed at a Redman show. Cypress Hill, you know? Getting gnarly. Hip hop has gotten so cheesy that I’m so hungry to bring that back because, I understand, you know, we need it all? We need the chill shit, you know what I’m sayin’? The coffee shop shit, the chill shit, we need that. It’s just that I, you know, am in a place now where I want to give an avenue for kids to fuckin’ let loose and be angry, you know, at my shows so that they don’t fuckin’ have to be angry in life, you know what I’m sayin’?

Yo, listen to my shit and just lose it, man, you know? ‘Cause that’s what I did. Hop in the Chevy and listen to fuckin’ Onyx and just go crazy, listen to NWA and go crazy, you know? And if I wanted to chill I was into Souls of Mischief, I was into fuckin’ Digable Planets, you know, I listened to Tribe, you know? But, you know, I want to rage out I listen to fuckin’ “Master of Puppets,” or fuckin’ Megadeath or Dio or fuckin’ like some punk rock, you know. Suicidal Tendencies or, fuckin’, you know, just that angry, angry rap shit, gangsta shit, you know? And that’s exactly what I’m talkin’ about. I ain’t no gangster, I didn’t grow up on the West Coast. But I connected with that energy.

On representing country life:
I think country life, country culture, is the root of this country, period. Everything stems from that. ‘Cause outside every city is country, period. I’ve been all over this country already, and every small town is the same. They all got issues. They’re all nine-to-fivers. They’re all hustling … lookin’ for a way out. Most of ‘em don’t know why. And out there, all of ‘em, they don’t even need it. They have this vision of what it’s like somewhere else. They would all be disappointed if they knew, for real, you know? Like, I fucking love my small town. Those small towns are some of the last places where real people live, generations of real people live, and you get culture. You go to the city, ain’t no culture. You go to Atlanta, Georgia, right now, you won’t hear no Southern accents, in the whole city. It’s like, where’d the country go? You go to my town, and they’re like, ‘How you doin’?,’ hold the door open for you, old people wavin’ at you. And, you know, there’s drama, too, there’s a drama but it’s a small town drama. It’s parking lot fights, you know, like, over girls? But there’s a beauty there, dog, that we can’t lose. We can’t lose that, you know? We need that. That’s what makes America America, dog. Like the older I get the more patriotic I get.

I got a label called Slumerican that I’ve started. And as a label, the kind of artists that I want to sign are all gonna be culturally influential. They’re all gonna have a similar thing not just between one another musically but between one another culturally. They’ll all have a story.

I go to some small town, man, I see some cowboy and they haven’t left their town. They rodeo, and like, they got their country girl, a big pickup truck, and I just think that’s so fuckin’ dope, man. It’s as dope to me as going to the Bronx and seeing some second generation B Boy that does graffiti and his dad was in a B Boy crew and he inherited hip hop. You know, we can’t lose that shit. We gotta keep our cultures alive, man. It just took a while to figure it out, but I have figured it out.

On the future and the next generation of hip hop:
I plan on continuously evolving. Five years from now, I wanna be doing arenas with a band. I never want to lose the hip hop element but I also want to bring rock to the table.

[Enter DJ Artime]

 This is my DJ Artime. I wanted to bring him in ’cause I caught a vibe and I just wanted him to chime in. So basically, me and him, 3 years ago, maybe 2 and a half years ago, we did a classic rock mixtape (Stereo) and then we started a band. At our shows, we had really wild mosh pits. We had dudes showing up wearing helmets and shit. It was gnarly. We could do some hip hop shit and the people would go crazy. Some country, rock shit. And at the end do some punk rock … Before I had a band, I had a certain energy on stage because all the experiences I had were just hip hop. After we put that band together, I got a taste of that fucking raw, rock energy and that’s translated over into my shows no matter what kind of music that I’m doing.

DJ ARTIME: To me, hip hop is everything. All the best people in hip hop come from an angle. Tribe brought jazz. Rick Rubin brought rock. De La Soul brought funk and disco. Dr. Dre brought Parliament. To be great at hip hop, you kinda have to go somewhere else and bring it in because hip hop is about the art of DJing, mixing records. I think why I fell out of love with hip hop is because that’s kinda been lost. Everything sounds the same. But there are people out there trying their own thing. There’s a guy named Rittz coming out of Atlanta.

YELAWOLF: Yeah, he’s coming out on Slumerican too.

DJ ARTIME: And Big K.R.I.T. Those are the motherfuckers really doing their thing. I fuck with them.

YELAWOLF: We’ve found a circle of artists. Wiz Khalifa is the same way. His culture is weed smokers. That’s his thing. He’s also a fucking ill A&R for himself. The music he makes is incredible. Don’t get it fucked up, Wiz Khalifa is super talented. He knows exactly what he’s doing. Because there’s plenty of people out there rapping about smoking weed. Plenty! But he NAILED that shit, know what I’m sayin’? His style is really ill. I’m just honored to be out here opening up for him and him sharing his fans with us. I’ll look out for him forever.

But yeah, like he was saying, Rittz, K.R.I.T., Wiz… there’s a circle of kids who’ve been on the under like ‘Fuck man, are we ever gonna get our opportunity?’ And the doors are opening now. It’s been a chain reaction. Dominoes. Everybody’s getting their chance. Prynce CyHi is another one. CyHi was on “I Wish” with me, the remix and ends up signed on GOOD Music with Kanye, know what I’m sayin’? Everybody’s getting their opportunity. This group of kids has a lot of talent.

DJ ARTIME: And it’s not about, I got the biggest chain, I’m poppin’ bottles and V.I.P. bullshit. It’s almost like a new era that we’re ushering in. Not just in hip hop but in music. All the cats in this circle are pretty musical.

YELAWOLF: After 0-60, we’ve got a project coming in March called Radioactive. And it’s going to be an even bigger release, God-willing. I’m really approaching that record with my stand on mainstream radio shit. It’s a play on words. It’s a play on music. We’re trying to connect with people on an even bigger level… like a more worldly feel but keeping it true to the roots of what I do. It’s like challenge, dog.

I am sitting on about 3 or 4 records, for almost four years, that are going to be on Radioactive. I’ve been holding ‘em. When we recorded them, we were like, this deserves distribution. This deserves a bigger ear. This isn’t an underground record. This isn’t a buzzworthy record. This is a record for the world, you know? It just felt that way to us. It just felt that big to us.

So again, man, just taking another step forward and challenging ourselves. Artime’s teaching me guitar a lot lately. Been taking vocal lessons and shit. He’s ill, man. Plays guitar, piano, anything. He’s a drummer and DJ. You know, he respects the craft.

When this shit started connecting with people, I was like damn. I could do this shit in my sleep, you know? Rap shit… it comes really easy to me. I love it. It comes really natural. Music comes natural to me. Melody comes natural to me. So I’m just excited that DJ Artime is about this rap shit ’cause I just love doing it. I’m happy.
For a while, we both kinda fell out of love with hip hop. But we’ve rekindled it, dog, to the utmost.