US rapper Yelawolf talks his double album War Story, embracing the craziness, and the broken heart of an artist
By Katharina Moser
Rays of warm sunshine peak through the half-opened thick curtains and illuminate the mixing desk in soft light. On the dock, it says “Trunk Muzik Forever”, next to it a sign adorned with the words “Insane Asylum – Enter with Caution”. A gift from his friends, Yelawolf will say later, and laugh. It is early evening in Nashville, and cross-legged, with his unmistakable stern face and his trademark tattoos, Yelawolf casually sits in a studio room of East Iris Studios, the creative hub of Slumerican artists around the American household rapper. His red, throne-like velvet chair with wood decorations oddly stands out in the modern studio environment – and appears almost emblematic for what Yelawolf has become to stand for: his star status, yes, but also the synchronism of the manifold styles and influences he embodies, as much as the unwavering timelessness of his art and the soulfulness it radiates. To that, his team is convinced, his new double album War Story, released on June 7, is another testimony – one which we have come to discuss here within the sacred walls of East Iris.
“I rarely put expectations up on albums. But this one is different. I have high expectations for War Story”, Yelawolf admits. For him, War Story is the answer to Love Story, his pivotal album released in 2015, at that time still under Eminem´s record label Shady Records. For War Story, the rapper worked with the same producers as nine years ago, namely the well-known WLPWR and Malay, with each one producing one side of the double album. “First, they were intended to be two separate releases, as each album got a different feel and I didn’t see them intertwining. Together, the playlist wouldn’t have felt like a cohesive project”, Yelawolf explains. “But they were so good on their own that we decided a double album is the best idea for the project.” He is convinced War Story might be his best body of work so far, and definitely the best hip hop album he has recorded in his career. “When I did Sometimes Y, my rock´n´roll album with Shooter Jennings, I got so hungry for hip hop again. It refueled my passion. But for a new hip hop record I needed a producer to push that out of me, to help to inspire me”, Yelawolf says. And who would be better suited for that than WLPWR and Malay, who Yelawolf has been working with for years? “We really bring the best out of one another when we are in a room. I expect people to be blown away by the album.”
The title War Story is nothing less than symbolic for all the album expresses and entails: “I´ve been through a lot since Love Story. There has been a mental, spiritual war, even physical at times”, Yelawolf says. To master the transition from being signed to a major label – Yelawolf was part of Eminem´s Shady Records squad from 2011 until 2019 – to an independent record artist and label executive of his very own Slumerican Records has been a pathway full of challenges and obstacles, the rapper says. “Behind the scenes, surviving that without disappearing, has been a war. With the musical giants that are out there distributing music, you really have to come with it in order to sustain yourself, especially coming out of a major record label system into the independent system.” War Story is a testimony to this journey, capping the rapper´s exceptional career so far. “Sometimes you have to go through a war to get to a point where you have a story to tell. I have needed this self-deprecating approach at times along the lines of my career in order to fill myself with creativity, to push through something that was really different.” The double album consists, one, of the Michael Wayne side, produced by Malay, which is a very personal tape according to the rapper, and two, of Trunk Muzik 4Ever, produced by WLPWR, which is more energetic and 808-driven. “The irony between Love Story and War Story is that Love Story has more angst, and War Story has more love”, Yelawolf remarks thoughtfully. “There is more heartfelt passion in War Story, while in Love Story it was more an angry “watch this” attitude. War Story is a graduation.”
With that, Yelawolf also means that he finds himself in a better place both mentally and artistically than ever before in his life. “I look at songs that I recorded and things I was doing ten years ago, and it´s like a different person. I´m still at it, still very active. But I used to be such as savage. I was animalistic. I would have done anything, anywhere”, Yelawolf looks back. “These days, my art is more controlled. I feel safer because of my people and where I´m at. It´s given me a new bandwidth to create from. The proving grounds are over.” After what Yelawolf has done and achieved for the genre, he does not need to prove his skills to anybody any longer. “For a long time that was all I cared about. All I wanted was respect. Once I earned this respect from my peers, and gained fans that were going to be with me for the rest of my life, a certain peace has entered the creative process.” Looking back, the record with Shooter Jennings was a blessing in disguise. “I don’t think I could have moved forward without doing that album. I had to get rock´n´roll out of my system. Because it was my dream. My first dream.”
Sometimes Y, in that sense, has opened up new perspectives on Yelawolf´s contributions to multiple genres and art forms. “When I approach a project, everything begins to evolve around it. That was also the case with Sometimes Y. I was fully immersed in it. Everything from my clothes to my performance – I lived that album.” For a while, Yelawolf tells us, he thought about stating his birth name, Michael Wayne Atha, as the artist behind the rock´n´roll record. “But Shooter said, no way, this is just another room in the house you are building. And one day when people walk through your house, they will walk into different rooms and see different eras of art. Rock´n´roll is just another room in your house. That made perfect sense to me, so Yelawolf remained the name.” Around the time of the release of Sometimes Y, Yelawolf recalls with a bit of indignity, rumor got around that the rapper had quit hip hop. “I never said this, I just said I was going to focus on this rock´n´roll project for now. Hip hop is the love of my life. When I started hearing the rumors, I thought, you think you can get rid of me? You think I could just walk away from it, that easy? After all the fucking work, all the love, the passion, the blood, sweat, and tears, you think I´ll just walk away. Nah. And so I got to writing this record.”
“Song-writing is like there is a butterfly floating through the room, and that’s your song, and you throw a net trying to catch it. If you miss it and it flies out the window, it´s gone forever.”
Yelawolf
It is the deeply felt commitment to true art, the unlimited creativity flowing from anything the artist touches, and a stubborn drive for constant growth that make up part of Yelawolf´s exceptional contributions to contemporary music. Although, the rapper admits, he is sometimes not sure himself what magic void his ideas and inspirations flow from. “Music never happens the same way twice. For me it is never, ever the same.” A song might start out with a lyric idea, or a melody, or a beat. When writing and refining the song, Yelawolf describes, he is always moving. “Forward movement is very powerful. Whether it is walking, running, riding a bike, skateboarding, or being in a car. I pace when I write, and I need to be moving around”, he explains. “But how it happens?” The rapper whistles through his teeth. “Your guess is as good as mine. Song-writing is like there is a butterfly floating through the room, and that’s your song, and you throw a net trying to catch it. If you miss it and it flies out the window, it´s gone forever, you´ll never get it again. So you have to capture it. And the same happens when we record it, it is being set free, and it´s off for the rest of the world to enjoy it.” According to Yelawolf, he and his team have made records from the “craziest shit you could imagine”. “Till It´s Gone started with nothing but a foot tapping. A simple four-four. And look what has come out of this.”
“Till It´s Gone”, interestingly from the Love Story album, has so far been, the rapper has stated multiple times, the most significant song in his repertoire, one that speaks out of his soul more than any other. If War Story is the answer to Love Story, is there a song on it that corresponds to “Till It´s Gone” in its significance, in its power of expression? “Yeah. For sure”, Yelawolf says without hesitation. “It´s called Marijuana. I´m describing my experience of checking out. At a certain time in my career, I was smoking massive amounts of weed. I was off on tour and stopped drinking for a while, just kept smoking. But I have bipolar tendencies and also probably some schizophrenia, and it triggered all that shit bad. I just completely checked out. THC is just not for me”, Yelawolf has learned. “That song on War Story means a lot to me personally. I have been on this journey with drugs and spiritualism all my life. Literally.” He quotes from the new song: Motherfucker, I been high, since knee-high, since tea time, five years old on a polaroid, that´s me high. “I was handed a beer at five years old. That was when I started drinking. And there is a photo of it. They used to give me beers to put me to sleep. While in other rooms there is cocaine, and heroine, and sex, drugs, and rock´n´roll. I saw all that shit. Drugs and alcohol have always been a part of my life. At one point you just check out.”
“How do you market someone who´s always changing? “
Yelawolf
“Marijuana” may be as powerful in storytelling and expression as “Till It´s Gone”. But that may be all the two songs have in common. “I never try to remake or chase the sound of one song. That song is done, it´s over, I´d never try to make a record that even remotely sounds like this. Some artists are really good at this, though. They can just reproduce songs that are different, but feel the same. I wish I could do that. I don’t know how they do that shit. How do you keep making the same song over and over again?”, Yelawolf asks incredulously. But would he really want to do that? He ponders that idea for a moment. “I mean, I envy people with consistency. I´m inconsistent. My consistency is being inconsistent, creatively speaking. My manager and I say, we are creatively schizophrenic and professionally bipolar. That’s my character, that´s just who I am”, the rapper says. “For War Story, I died my hair silver just to shoot the cover. Because I felt I needed to look like I had been through war. It worked for the cover. But how do you market someone who´s always changing? It´s hard. And I have changed a lot.” While Yelawolf´s work ethic and output may be as consistent as an artist could wish for, his sounds and styles, indeed, live off versatility and constant re-invention. “Sometimes I envy artists like Snoop Dogg or Jay-Z. They keep sounding the same, they look the same, they are very reliable. Jay-Z grew his hair out, and that´s already extreme for Jay-Z. For me that’s lightweight.” Yelawolf, he makes clear, loves Jay-Z´s music, but the way he crafted his own career is more inspired by Andre 3000. “He is just so free. I want to be that free. I want to do whatever the fuck I want to do. And I don’t want to make excuses about it”, Yelawolf says. “These days are more fun than ever because I am blending everything. And that is War Story to me.”
“Everybody got their own brand of crazy.”
Yelawolf
To achieve this richness of sound and a perfect understanding of how music and styles work and mingle, an ordinary mind isn´t the way to go. “I´ve accepted and embraced my craziness fully. I was actually running from it for a long time. Which was counterproductive, being in denial of how crazy I was. I´m clearly nuts. You gotta be crazy to do that shit, and I´m cool with that”, Yelawolf clarifies with a grin. “Accepting it helped me to embrace my superpower. My gift is being unpredictable. Damn, Johnny Cash wore black forever. How do you do that? I´ve tried. If I just wear the same outfit for three days I´m already over it, I´m going nuts. If I have the same hairstyle for too long, I´m over that, too.” Yelawolf always remains in search of the unique, the outstanding, the experimental. “It’s a gift and a curse. Consistency is comforting. But accepting to be crazy helped me craft my own mental space. Music is the space that I let my crazy go”, Yelawolf explains. “I used to worry about perception. But I don’t worry anymore. There is something beautiful about controlled insanity. There is something very liberating about losing it and being okay with that.” That is why being live on stage is so important for the rapper, too: It is a space where he and his fans can flip the switch and just lose it. “My dad” – not his biological father, but father figure, he makes clear – “said it best. At that time, I was the artist that had lost it publicly, and was wondering how to ever get back from this. And he said: Son, everybody got their own brand of crazy. Are you crazy enough to go to school for twelve years to be a doctor? No. So you´re as crazy to them as they are to you. What is crazy really? It is all crazy. Some shit I wouldn’t do is some shit you would do. I choose to do this. This is my crazy.”
If you call it crazy or creative genius – or both – the fact remains that Yelawolf has long brought some considerable distance between his music and the commercial mainstream within hip hop. “I have a lot of pride for having my own universe”, Yelawolf agrees. And he´d like to keep it that way. “I get so caught into my creation, it´s like blinders on a horse. That´s me in a nutshell creatively. Some artists love to be continually involved with other art and other artists. I´m scared of that shit”, Yelawolf says, and laughs lightly. “I don’t want to share too much of my creative ear to what´s going on, I don’t wanna fuck my own shit up, I don´t want to be influenced too much. A little bit of influence is fine, but you gotta be a bit selfish.” A quote by Miles Davis has made a lasting impression on the rapper: “To be a creative and completely original, you have to be selfish, you can´t go listen to everybody´s shit. You have to create your own bubble of art and fans.” Despite his undisputed star status, it happens often enough that people approach him asking if he is “some sort of rock star”. “It´s crazy that you´re on the map for millions of people, and off the map for millions of others.”
“Why would I want to be everyone´s favorite?”
Yelawolf
Yelawolf doesn’t take this too hard, though. “My life as an artist reflects who I was as a kid anyway. I was never at the fucking popular table in the fucking lunch room. Never. Why would it be any different as an adult. Why would I want to be everyone´s favorite? That’s never going happen. I´m not that kid. I never have been that kid”, Yelawolf says with a hint of pride and defiance in his voice. “Am I gonna be a mainstream hit? Probably not, because I never was that guy in the first fucking place. I was always an outcast, always at the table with the nerds and the skateboarders and the artists. I found all of my people. And that is wealth. We are here. Jelly Roll is finding his people. Struggle Jennings is finding them. And we got more artists that continue to find them.” Even Eminem, back in the day, prophesied that Yelawolf would have an “insane” fanbase. “He was right. We are a unique bunch. And I love it. I wouldn’t have it any other way. That´s Slumerican.”
Slumerican, the name of Yelawolf´s record label, of his apparel and clothing brand, and most importantly, of a lifestyle and community aside from the conventions of society, has certainly made waves ever since the rapper called it into life. Slumerican, according to Yelawolf, has retained its original meaning, but it has evolved for sure. “For me it has never changed. But it took years to explain to people what I envisioned it to be.” Some Slumerican fans wanted it to stay in the era of Trunk Muzik. Others wanted it to stay about the struggle. “They didn’t understand the concept of me – how I can call myself Slumerican and wear Gucci pants. They didn’t understand the juxtaposition that I was creating. It´s about making it up – up – up. This is where were from, what we´re talking about. But we´re not staying down here.” At the same time, Slumerican is not exclusively hip hop. “We´re about really good country, about really good rock´n´roll, about really good metal, really good hip hop, because these are the things that I grew up on… and that is Slumerican, all of it. Painting, skateboarding, photography, anything that is of the art.” One does not have to be American to understand the concept: “It’s a celebration of being where were from, doing what we do. I didn’t graduate high school, I come from the gutter. All of my people did. We made it out of that situation with multiple lanes. I made it out as a rapper. That´s an amazing thing to do, but it took multiple strains of culture for me to build that person. What Yelawolf is, is a fucking river of music and culture.”
“Something has to have broken your heart in order for you to be an artist. You can´t float through this shit like a daisy.”
Yelawolf
Part of the Slumerican philosophy is a team spirit and an idea of shared success that is reflected in his support for young and upcoming artists Yelawolf has signed to the label, such as Cowboy Killer and J. Michael Philipps (formerly F1 of FMG). Yelawolf makes sure that a variety of styles and genres is represented in Slumerican, and that nothing sounds the same. “I want to build a community of artists and lift them up. They inspire me. Young artists need mentors. Who the fuck is here for them. No one is lending their experience down. All the little tricks that I had to learn the hard way – I´m offering it up”, Yelawolf says. “You want to play basketball, I spent 20 years building a perfect court to practice on. You don’t have to throw your basketball through a square hoop anymore. I put you on the perfect floor and you can practice at a high level. It´s weatherproof in here”, he describes figuratively. Does he ever wish he had had a safe space like that starting out? “No, not really. I wouldn’t have crafted this kind of beast that I had to become to do it all. We did Trunk Muzik in the back of a house with no heat, on busted speakers. That environment charged that content.” Yelawolf does not think that an artist necessarily has to suffer. “But I do think it’s a law that you have to be broken somewhere. Something has to have broken your heart in order for you to be an artist. You can´t float through this shit like a daisy. And I wouldn’t sign someone to Slumerican if I didn’t feel like they had been broken. It´s like a horse. You need to break them.” For Yelawolf and his listeners, pain is the seasoning to the art, without it, there is no taste.
With the incredible amount of music he has put out, the artist persona he has crafted, his success with his label, with his brand, with his fans, does it never occur to him to lean back? “I don’t know any different. We come from an era of hustlers. Period. We´re not comfortable sitting still. I don’t give a shit about what I have already done in my life, we don’t shut off. We have to wear ourselves down to sleep at night. If I sat back, I could never sleep”, Yelawolf says. “Being poor is a motherfucker. Once you get a taste of paying your bills and eating when you wanna eat, it’s a very addictive thing, and you don’t wanna go back to not being able to take care of your kids and pay bills. It doesn’t matter how much money you make, you´re never going to lose the fear of losing it all”, he adds. “I would like to think that I´ll leave my family with something that they can eat off, for generations to come. It becomes bigger than just now. I´m thinking about a hundred years from now.”
War Story, the Slumerican team is sure, is going to be one of those albums that could shape an entire decade, that could leave a true mark in the already unerasable legacy Yelawolf has crafted. In the industry, his style has, at times, been called too experimental, too distinctive in the re-interpretation of various styles, to achieve accolades as mainstream industry success. But now more than ever, Yelawolf is convinced that his name should stand in a row with artists such as Eminem and Kendrick Lamar. “Whether people decide to pay attention to it or not is on them. But I dare you to play War Story and say it´s not one of the best hip hop albums. This is it. This is what you fight for. This is what we´re doing. This is what we´ve evolved to. Stop writing things off. Fuck what I look like, fuck where I´m from. Listen!”
The Wrapper 