Not to boast and brag or anything, but OZONE was probably the first major Hip Hop publication to interview YELAWOLF back when he joined our Patiently Waiting ranks in October of 2007. Admittedly, over the years, plenty of artists with Patiently Waiting cosigns are still, in fact, patiently waiting. But in the case of this Gadsden, Alabama MC, when his Trunk Muzik mixtape spread through the internet like oil in the gulf, it led him to a deal with Interscope (and a collective “I told you so” came from the OZONE headquarters). Since it has been well over two years since he graced this magazine’s pages, now is as good a time as any to catch up with Jimmy Iovine’s newest signee. Here, Yelawolf speaks on the direction of his music, his new situation with Interscope and ongoing comparisons to Eminem. You’ve been on the rap scene for a few years, but it seems like people are just starting to catch onto your music. Why do you think people are starting to listen now? After we put out Trunk Muzik, people were waiting to hear me rap over 808’s and raw shit. We put out Slick Rick E. Bobby, and we put out Stereo, which was a Hip Hop tribute to classic rock. OZONE nominated that for an award [and] we got 5 [blunts] for that mixtape [review]. It made a lot of noise on the underground. I went from there and did this experimental project called Arena Rap. We put a band together, and we were doing shows around Atlanta. Then, just me and my team sat down and we were like, lets just do some raw rap shit for this next project and let’s see how it goes. After we put that out online, obviously the feature [“I Run”] with Slim Thug…that’s when people started turning their heads, like, “This kid might have something.” After Slim ran that single for a while, Kane Beatz hit me up to do the “Mixin’ Up The Medicine” hook for Juelz Santana, and that was my first official video look. Then we dropped “Pop The Trunk,” and that started getting a lot of attention. Then we put out “Good To Go,” featuring Bun B, and then Raekwon’s feature for “I Wish,” and by then we had a lot of attention on blogs. By the time we dropped Trunk Muzik, it was like people were just waiting for me to rap. Was raw rap and 808’s the direction that you wanted to go with your music? Or did you want to go in another direction? After Stereo, I really wanted to evolve into a band, so I did the Arena Rap shit. It started doing really well around Atlanta, and we threw a show out there with a band. I had a fiddle player, a banjo player, guitar, drums, turntables; it was just a crazy fucking show. L.A. Reid came, DJ Khaled was there; there were a bunch of people there to see the show. There were 2,000 people in there, and they still were like, “I don’t know” and passed. L.A. Reid said, “No, I’m good.” Khaled was like, “I don’t get it.” So, we kept doing shows, and nobody was showing signs of giving us any help. You can’t keep continuously doing this as an independent label. You run out of money. It gets to the point where you can’t even do shows anymore because it costs a lot of money to have a band and all that shit. So my team was like, “Do a rap project. If you don’t have a deal in six months, you can do whatever you wanna do.” And I’ll be damned; they had deal for me in six months, after I put out Trunk Muzik. Obviously, I’ve always loved and will always love Hip Hop, but there was a point when it started getting tainted…I just thought nobody’s ever gonna understand what I’m doing, so I might as well be underground forever. When we put out Trunk Muzik I got excited again and realized a new potential that I had. So you signed with Interscope. Why did you choose to sign with them? We had just got off tour with Wiz Khalifa and we went straight to South By South West. And we did like nine shows in five days, and we killed SXSW. Everybody had somebody from a label out there, so after we did SXSW we flew from Texas to Los Angeles to meet with Jimmy Iovine and Luke Wood. We had met with a lot of labels prior to SXSW, and they all said they wanted to do it, but they were just afraid. But when Jimmy and Luke flew us out there, they asked us, “Do y’all want to do this? Because if you don’t want to do this, you’re wasting your time being here.” Basically the same shit we had been telling other people, they told us. We’d walk into a label and be like, “Look, man. Do y’all want to do this, cause if not, we’re leaving.” But they told it to us this time. And then creatively it made sense. No matter how normal I may feel about my music. I have to admit that what I do is still left field. Interscope has a history of putting out records from the left field, and being successful with it. Do you think part of the reason Interscope wanted to sign you was because of the success Eminem had on their label? I don’t know. I can’t assume that. Based on his success, it’s fair to guess that, but I wouldn’t assume that to be true. But obviously, not just
Eminem, but what they’ve done with [Lady] Gaga, what they did with Dr. Dre when he was coming in with that super controversial shit that he was kicking with N.W.A. Everything that went down with Interscope has been left field. So I think more or less it made sense because it’s new to them; it was something they’ve never heard before. Are you tired of the Eminem comparisons yet? I’m a huge Eminem fan, so I’m definitely honored. If I could have half the success that dude has had, who wouldn’t want that? The comparisons are slowly starting to change into my own person. One day somebody’s gonna have to deal with being compared to me. When B.o.B. came out everybody was trying to say he sounds like Dre. Nipsey [Hussle] is dealing with the Snoop comparisons. That’s who we are as people, we compare. Eventually, that shit will go away completely. I flew up to meet with Eminem a couple months back, and just to settle it forever, Eminem told me, “I don’t know why people are comparing you to me, because you don’t sound anything like me. And not only do you not sound anything like me, you don’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard before.” I felt great [when he said that]. I felt like, well I guess that settles that. One thing that sets you apart from other artists is your live show. You have crazy energy on stage. How do you gather your energy to perform your shows? I’m just passionate about my music. When I’m in the studio recording my records, I can’t even get in the booth unless I’m hype about it. So I’m excited about the record, number one. Two, people’s energy gets me hype. And it only takes one. It starts with me, but if I connect with one person, it’s a wrap. Me and that one muthafucker are going to turn 50 to 100 to 300 people out. And there’s always a few people that are super into it, and I just go straight at them, and start putting on a show because I connect with them. And that connection is addictive, it just grows as the show goes on. When I did my show at Pacsun in Santa Monica, when I stepped out on the stage, there were a bunch of people standing with their arms crossed, but by the end of my set [they were] crowd surfing. I enjoy making fans at this point, because at the end of the day, I’m still brand new. You just got off tour with Wiz Khalifa. Was that your first tour? Yeah, it was the first time I had been on a tour, period. And Wiz, man… what the fuck! This fool sells out everywhere. This dude is no fucking joke, man. And his fans are so fucking cool; they enjoy just having a good show. The tour has been dope, plus Wiz is really cool people. We get along good, so we plan on continuing it. Next, you’re putting out a new version of Trunk Muzik, right? Yeah, we decided to put a project out called Trunk Muzik: 0-60, which is pretty much a description of how fast this is moving, and also where we wanna take people. So we’re taking five or six fan favorites from Trunk Muzik, adding on five to seven brand new records, and putting it out distributed [through] Interscope. 0-60 will be out in September. What’s your hometown of Gadsden, Alabama like? Gadsden is a small town in Alabama, east of Birmingham, west of Atlanta. Basically, I live in a blue collar, working-class town. There’s a lot of factory workers, people that work for Goodyear. My mom has been a bartender her whole life, my grandmother retired from Food World, my grandfather retired from Goodyear, and my great-grandfather retired from the steel plant. So it’s generations of working people. All this town is made of is fucking hand-to-hand combat, just fucking straight up survival. (laughs) My town is made up of some of the best, most humble people in the world, and also some of the most dangerous people in the world. It’s like we love where you’re from, we’re proud of it… but it’s like, come on in but wipe your feet at the doormat. Coming out of Alabama, what is your goal in Hip Hop? I’d like to have a ten-year run. I have a ten-year plan. I wanna evolve, I wanna grow up with my fans. And that is the main goal, to continuously gain fans from music that’s evolving. None of us are gonna stay young. I know my tastes grow and change, grow and change, so I expect the same for the people we’re making music for. So every project I’m just trying to challenge my last project, trying to outgrow it. Bigger venues, bigger arenas, and make classics that last for a lifetime. I was listening to Ice Cube’s AmeriKKKa’s Most Wanted album and Cypress Hill’s shit the other day, like, damn this shit never really goes away. Biggie Smalls, Jay-Z, Eminem, Busta Rhymes, UGK, N.W.A, Three 6 Mafia; these people put out records that last a lifetime. So I would like to be a part of that family. // Words by Randy Roper Photo by Maurice G. Garland
OZONE MAG // 55