It's been nearly four years since Yelawolf put out a studio album. Fours years without a solo project can be crippling to an MC's career but Wolf manages to keep his name afloat. Since the release of his debut album Radioactive, Yelawolf has remained relevant in hip-hop by releasing collaborative projects with Ed Sheeran and Blink-182 drummer Travis Barker and dropping his Trunk Muzik Returns mixtape, a followup to his breakout mixtape that landed him a deal with Shady Records and a spot on the 2011 XXL Freshmen cover.
Since 2012, the Gadsden, Ala. native has been working rigorously on his sophomore album, Love Story. But this time around he's doing things on his own terms. On Love Story, Wolf plans to give a body of work that he deems is completely his, all while lending his talents to Eminem for Shady Records' upcoming double dis compilation, Shady XV. While on the road, Yelawolf hopped on the phone with XXL to discuss Shady XV, his upcoming album Love Story and the upcoming five year anniversary of his breakout mixtape Trunk Muzik.
XXL: What can people expect from Shady XV?
Yelawolf: I was surprised to see “Pop The Trunk” and “Let’s Roll” on there. I didn’t know they were doing that, which is cool. The original record I put on there, “Down,” was a record that was really jamming but I wasn’t going to put it on Love Story. So it just so happened the opportunity came up to place it on Shady XV. “Down,” it’s in the vein of where I’m at these days. I put that song on there. I did the feature hook for the Slaughterhouse and Eminem track ["Psychopath Killer"] and the feature verse for the Eminem and Skylar Grey song ["Twisted"].
XXL:What can expect from "Twisted?" That one caught my eye.
Yelawolf: I’m going to leave that one a surprise, just because it’s that much of a surprise. Some people are not going to expect it at all. Even I was like, what the fuck. It definitely flips things. I’ll say that.
XXL: When did all this get recorded?
Yelawolf: Everyone was doing their own thing on it. Everybody was working in their own city. I was in the studio already working on Love Story. I pretty much haven’t stopped working on Love Story. I just put some shit together, Marshall would send me some shit, and I would record it and send it back to him.
XXL:Was Love Story all recorded in Nashville?
Yelawolf: Actually no, I did go to Detroit and record a bit with Marshall in his studio.
XXL: Nashville holds a lot of weight for you, correct?
Yelawolf: Well, it's nostalgic because I was there when I was a kid. My mom's first longer-term boyfriend was in the music industry. Her husband after was also in the industry. I was on the road with Alabama, Lenny Travis, Dwight David Yoakam, Trisha Yearwood, Ellen Jackson, all these big country stars. It’s just nostalgic to be a part of the music there. I love the city. I think it’s awesome.
XXL: I read in a recent interview that Love Story is going to be a lot more passionate, hence the title—passionate in more of a sense of openness.
Yelawolf: My last album was so rushed. It was like a fucking rush to do everything; rushing to get it in, rush to do this, etc; a lot outside ideas. For instance, I walked in the studio and Lil Jon was already on my record. So things like that happened throughout the entire album. That production company is gone, it doesn’t exist anymore. After talking to Marshall, this time around, were just going to go back to the roots. Just give me the keys to the studio—which they did—I’ll turn in an album and we'll take it from there. There’s no one else involved. Me, the producers, the musicians that I invite, after I speak to Marshall and that’s it. It’s kind of like invite only. By the way, I’m a big Lil Jon fan. I’m just saying how things used to happen. Like, I used to show up to the studio and the beat was already done and they would say, “Rap on this.” It was important to me to mash up everything that I’ve done in the past. Just really go back to the roots but somehow find a bigger sound. It took us five months to get the first record. We recorded 40 different ideas before we had the first record, before we said, “Aight, this is Love Story for sure.” That was the bar for it. It wasn’t “Till It’s gone,” but “Till It’s Gone” and “Box Chevy V” are good examples of the feel of Love Story. “Box Chevy V” is kind of like Trunk Muzik with a touch of Love Story. “Till It’s Gone” is all of Love Story; it definitely has the vibe. We made sure of it. It just naturally sounds thicker, I guess you can say. It's just very passionate and thought about tediously, which should always be the case, but you live and learn.
XXL: Sonically, what’s the album going to sound like and what types of stories are fans going to hear?
Yelawolf: It’s like a never-ending curse of trying to figure out how to evolve. You can’t reinvent the wheel. Nothing you really can talk about no one ain’t already talked about or talking about it at the same time. So you just got to find a way to make it unique. I think that’s what’s cool about hip-hop. The story and the content, it was just thought about. I rewrote some of the records like five times, entirely. Write it, record it, sit with it and trash it until it was just perfect. Some records came easy. “Till It’s gone” came in a few hours. But some records took some time.
XXL: What’s the status of Country Cousins with Big K.R.I.T.?
Yelawolf: M.I.A. [Laughs] That’s the status. I don’t know where Big K.R.I.T. is at with the idea. We’re homies and it could happen any time. The problem is getting him and I in the studio because we’re both pretty busy. I just read he did a record with Raphael Saadiq, which is nuts. I can’t wait to hear it.
XXL: Do you think it’s hard for Southern rappers who are not from major southern cities—Houston, Atlanta, New Orleans—to break out? Is it more difficult?
Yelawolf: I can only speak for Alabama in particular. Every state has its own identity. Alabama is just different. For me, you can just go down the list of all the reasons why I shouldn’t have been a rapper. So it’s like, how I fell into this shit and how it came to be, it’s took a lot of fucking work.
Everybody got his or her own story. I’m real fortunate I’ve gotten to where I’ve gotten. It’s still an ongoing battle. I know artists that are coming out of Alabama right now, especially rappers. It’s still extremely difficult. If anything I might have made it harder because I got my own identity and my own way of thinking and talking about Alabama. So whoever else comes out of there has to be completely different to make it. It makes it harder. So whomever currently doing it is making sure they have a unique sound. It’s crucial.
XXL: Trunk Muzik's fifth year anniversary is coming up on Jan. 2. Looking back, what can you say about recording it? And how have you evolved as an artist now?
Yelawolf: Man, that was another pretty passionate project. Right before Trunk Muzik, I had hair down to my waist. I had a full band and I was doing arena rap, but we couldn’t get a deal and everyone was turning us down, namely L.A. Reid. Who was a friend of a friend. It was like, "L.A. ain’t really vibing with us." I don’t know why we didn’t think, "Well, let's just go somewhere else." They were like, "Man, do a rap project and we’ll get you a deal. If we don’t get you a deal you can walk." So I was like, "Okay, you want a fucking rap project, here’s a fucking rap project." I called my boy up and went to my little house at Gadsden, Ala. and we made Trunk Muzik at the back of my house. We produced it and wrote it from Monday through Friday and recorded it Saturday and Sunday and had a cover for it by Monday, then turned it in. We documented it, too. I recorded like five songs a day. I was putting checks on the booth wall like, “Next. Next.” I had a list of songs written on the booth and I was checking them off while recording it. Yeah, man. “Pop The Trunk” caught fire and then I got a record deal.I think it's more really coming back, almost kind of like bringing everything back together. My views have grown. I’m more mature as a person and as an artist. My music is maturing. It’s just natural. I’m making a natural progression. I always have been one to stretch myself creatively. [Andre] 3000 has always been an inspiration to me. I want that freedom. I wanted to make sure that I didn’t pin myself down with one project. I know Trunk Muzik is one of my favorite projects and is a fan favorite, but my goal is to be expecting more from me. That’s where I’m at now, more. [Laughs]
It was already posted in the Shady XV thread, but I felt is deserves a thread of its own because it got lost in that massive thread so easily and he doesn't only talk about XV.
