Yelawolf Album

[Analisa Wisdom]

The discography of American rapper Yelawolf consists of seven studio albums, five collaborative albums, six mixtapes, nine EPs, 50 singles (including sixteen as a featured artist) and 82 music videos. His music has been released on record labels Interscope Records, Shady Records and DGC Records, including independent record label Ghet-O-Vision and Slumerican which has released some of his independent material.

Sometimes Y takes both artists into brand new musical realms, paying homage to a number of classic rock artists while still leaving their own stylistic marks. Listen to the full album on March 11th, and check out the first two singles here.

Yelawolf has released War Story, his double album which features Killer Mike, Jelly Roll, Caskey and Struggle Jennings. In a recent exclusive with Rock The Bells, Yelawolf discussed the new project. "Initially I set out to do two albums, so I went to Los Angeles and created an album which became the 'Michael Wayne' side, he explained.

"When I came back to Nashville, I played the record for WLPWR, and I felt that we needed to create a new album because there were two different vibes, and I didnt have the time to release two different projects."

"I felt like the project is the answer to Love Story," he says of the album's name. "It's the same two producers, and for everything we've been through in music and life, the major label system, and the Hip-Hop culture, and shows across the world it has really been somewhat of a war. The album is a celebration about that war, not so much the struggle of it, but becoming the artist that I am now."

There's a curious moment at the end of the sixth track on Yelawolf's major-label debut. It's "Throw It Up", one of the album's highlights. After the song ends, there's a skit where Yelawolf and his boss, Eminem, discuss the course of the album. Eminem tells Yelawolf that the album needs songs for women, love songs specifically. Yela, for his part, feigns protest. It's presented as a conversation that any label head might have with an artist, but including it on the album is a bizarre and remarkably cynical move. It's unclear whether it's presented as a warning, an apology, a cop-out, or all three, but it more importantly marks exactly where a potentially great album starts to go off the rails.

The idea of "crossing over" is something almost every rapper at a major label has to deal with. Making songs about, and for, women-- be it about love or dancing-- to gain popularity is a move about as old as the genre itself. For some rappers, it's a seamless transition. For others, it's not. It can be frustrating and dispiriting to watch the formula applied to a career that has yet to take shape, though it's a process everyone more or less knows is coming. It's also a route that can be rejected (a recent obvious example being Odd Future) or navigated deftly ("No Hands" didn't lose Waka Flocka any cred). Or, I guess, one can take the path Yelawolf chose, to lamely act as if you're a prisoner of a system that you chose to enter and make half-assed songs as if sentenced by law.

And with that rehearsed conversation with Eminem about making love songs for women, Yelawolf is trying to absolve himself from the responsibility of about one-third of Radioactive being decidedly half-assed. The middle of the album (featuring hooks from the likes of Priscilla Renea and Fefe Dobson) is far and away the worst music of Yelawolf's career, and he knows it. His rapping is passable, but the beats are leaden and uninspired and the hooks are about as canned as possible. It's hard to imagine what the market for those songs is, really-- I can't imagine that Yelawolf's female fans want to hear him rap about conventional romance, or want to hear a potentially good song about blue-collar American life drowned in a syrupy chorus.

The worst part isn't the songs themselves, but that the album didn't have to go this route. Outside the sagging middle section, the subject matter and production will be nothing new to those familiar with Yela's music; his voice and perspective remain sharp and unique, and he certainly hasn't lost any of his technical skill. The guests (Mystikal, Killer Mike, Three 6 Mafia secret weapon Gangsta Boo) are also otherwise the type of people that should be on a Yelawolf album, rappers from whom he pulls his vocal style or sharp wit, or to whom his fans likely also listen. (There is a frame of a great album here, and in the age of selective iTunes playlisting, maybe the regrettable portion of the album is merely just forgettable.) This isn't Yelawolf's first foray into trying to make pop songs or songs for women, but it's by far his worst. His previous albums-- last year's Trunk Muzik and its repackaged follow-up Trunk Muizk: 0-60-- showcased an ability and an affinity for pop songwriting that could've been fostered and encouraged here instead of being shelved for industry cast-offs.

And then there is "Let's Roll", the song with Kid Rock that unexpectedly shows exactly how the formula can go right. Whether it equals pop success remains to be seen, but it's a collaboration that plays to both artists' strengths. As country boys at heart with an interest in both rap and rock, Yela and Kid Rock are arguably closer kindred spirits than Yela and Eminem, despite the tongue-twisting rapping. "Let's Roll" asks Rock to sing a conventional rap hook over a conventional rap beat, but the crux is in the grittiness and twang that Rock brings to the track, which dovetails perfectly with Yela's imagery of life as a rebel in Alabama. It's an inspired pairing, one that amounts to one of the best songs of Yelawolf's career, and it holds a mirror up to the four or five insipid crossover attempts that come later.

By signing up you agree to our User Agreement (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions), our Privacy Policy & Cookie Statement and to receive marketing and account-related emails from Pitchfork. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

While Sometimes Y is the first rock and roll album from the duo of rap star Yelawolf and country royalty Shooter Jennings, rock and roll is in their blood as they point out. "Our parents grew up on '60s and '70s rock and roll, so that was in our household from birth," Yelawolf says during my lengthy conversation with he and Jennings.

So yeah, if you want to feel and share the spirit of rock, there is arguably no better place than the Rainbow. And this Sunday, May 8, the duo will do their first-ever headlining gig down the street from the Rainbow, doing another free show at the Viper Room.

As they explained, the free shows are part of their new approach to touring, one that came about during COVID. I spoke to the duo about their rock and roll legacy, getting the stamp of approval from the likes of Tommy Lee and Lynyrd Skynyrd and much more.

Yelawolf: As far as touring goes, I hit a big reset button. I was in Europe, actually in Russia when Trump made that call, like basically come back or stay. We were gonna stay actually I had a couple of my crew members did stay. But my manager was like, "Dude, we should just get back, man." It was our biggest tour to date in Europe. We just had to just bite the bullet and go home, came right home, straight into quarantine, built out a little studio with the equipment that I had and just started mapping out a bunch of music. Shooter and I started trading ideas during that time as well, one of which was "Hole In My Head," acoustic records that he cut. We didn't have lyrics but he sent me the demo and that was the seed that really ultimately planted this whole Sometimes Y album because we both really got excited about it. [And] I know that when I came back and I sat down, I was like, "Damn, I really have been on the road 250 days a year for 10 years. Is there a new approach? Is there a way that we can reinvent the way that we push a project?" And so we just decided collectively that, "Look, man, we've been doing this for a long time, so wouldn't it be better if we just do s**t that we thought was rad in the beginning? Instead of trying to hustle this s**t on the road, out of the gate, can we just be selective about where we go, when we go and who we're going to rock with? What are the bands, the venues that make this interesting?" I think overall we just feel like accessibility is just way too much right now these days, everything is so easy. Everything's so available and we're nostalgic, so we appreciate mystery, we appreciate the story. So that's what we decided to do is build the story of our favorite rock and roll band. Like the way that we would have, we would appreciate seeing it.

Shooter Jennings: Yeah dude, I love that. What you're saying is so true. We had all been in this f**king tunnel of how touring works and nobody's looking outside, everything is going by. I've been here 22 years, and it wasn't until 2020 that I sat around and go, "I live in LA. I love this place." And I really just looked at where I was, and really appreciated the city and I had not slowed down. And I think it was something that everyone who plays music, the way the system works you get an agent they get you on the road, you're doing gigs, you're playing half full rooms. You're servicing everywhere. Instead of servicing the machine, you're kind of servicing the road. And all of a sudden when it made us stop and turn around and go, "Wow, I have become used to something and it's so different. How do we make this count?" I think that this whole thing forced everybody to figure out a financial way to deal with it, and then now that we have financially dealt with that, we're looking at ourselves and going, "What's the healthy way to do this?" And I think that's a great thing. And I think that with our band, we're picking and choosing the show to do. We just had our first rehearsal last night, really, since the record, and it was awesome. We're picking these moments that really count. And we're gonna play in Nashville, we're gonna play in New York, we're gonna play in Long Beach some day. But the reality is, we're gonna do things that count and it's gonna make it special. And I think the pandemic has really let us nurture ourselves and appreciate ourselves and really, for that reason, give more to the audience than we did before. I think we were kind of slogging like super zombies on the road for a long time in a lot of these shows. And now we kind of have healed ourselves that we're like, "Okay, let's take a beat, we're gonna do it this way."

c80f0f1006