Yelawolf Gadsden AL

“CONFEDERATE FLAGS/YEA I SEE EM/ON THE TRUCK WITH THE WINDOWS DOWN/WHY IS HE PLAYIN BEANIE SEGAL?/CUZ HIS DADDY WAS A DOPE MAN/LENARD SKYNARD NEVER TALKED ABOUT MOVIN KEYS AND COKE, MAN!”

-YELAWOLF, I Wish, (2010)

Look at what NWA did. When they burst on the scene all those years ago, they showed New York, and more importantly the entire country, the blueprint of how to be successful in rap music when you did not originate from Hip-hop’s Mecca.

Indeed, they just put on for their city; with their own regional style and original personas that reflected their experience in that part of the world. That trend has reverberated thorough the years with regions like Chicago, the Bay Area, St. Louis, N. O., and of course Atlanta usurping their own position in the Hip-hop.

Master P turned his peculiar, southern drawl into his most valuable asset and ascended to the top of the Hip-hop power structure in the mid-90s. Nelly, inkind, took his regional style and accents—“thurrs” and all—and struck gold because of his he was different. Yelawolf is the continuation of that trend. He is bringing his persona and unorthodox experience to bring Hip-hop fans to him.

Yela looks more like a punk rocker than your typical rap artist. If you look at the pictures above, youe’ll see that under his black hat, he wears a long mullet and is completely tatted up—one standout seems to be a large catfish on his arm and a bird with a broken neck and a rose where the head used to be. He is a weird dichotomy. But that’s the same initial reaction the Hip-hop world had to NWA, Master P, and Nelly.

His whole persona seems to scream ‘I just don’t give a fuck, Im me.” All the way down to his sometimes choppy, most times zany flow. He is half-white and Cherokee Indian and he definitely seems to be deeply rooted in Hip-hop culture. An Alabama emcee, his flow sounds like a combination of Big Boi’s of Outkast mixed with the diction of a West Coast emcee.

He has recently been gaining headway and his recent mixtape Trunk Musik has co-signed features from the likes of Big-Boi and Juelz Santana along with veterans like Raekwan and Bun B.

His appeal is less his lyrical content—though show amazing lyrical ability—and more focused on the uniqueness of his image. When people find out that he originally pursued a career as a pro-skateboarder before entering the rap game, it’s not a surprising find. But when we hear his lyrics about fast cars, faster women, and the underground drug economy, we see that he is (unfortunately) not unlike many other rappers.

Because of his image, he has also felt the need to address questions about his authenticity. On “I Wish,” a track found on Trunk Muzik he wishes “a mutherfucker would tell me that I aint Hip-hop!” He is just coming with it from his own experience. That’s Hip-hop.

He confesses “confederate flags/yea I see ‘em/on the truck with the windows/why is he playin’ Beanie Segal?/cuz his daddy was a dope man/Lenard Skynard never talked about movin’ keys and coke, man!” But he doesn’t seem to dwell on acceptance; he’s too real to be denied. That’s definitely Hip-hop.

Again, his music is nothing particularly new. He spits about excessive sex (“tell me can you handle it/me downtown like a vandal is/you know white boys eat pussy like a samowhich”), hood whips (“my wheels are super clean”), and drugs (“I was in the basement mixin up the medicine”). But superb flow has long taken precedent over lyrical content.

When Raekwan (and Ghostface Killah) dropped Only Built for Cuban Linx  all those years ago, it was held as a classic because of the flows they employed. The lyrics were mostly about the drug game. Newer artists (like Wiz Khalifah and Yelawolf) can get away with talking about labored themes like drugs if the flow is at a certain level of quality or they have some enjoyable quality.

Yela definitely has the flow that’s enjoyable charisma. Ya’ll should thank NWA for Yela’s emergence. Thank God for Hip-hop.

Click here to download Trunk Music