When most folks think of Music City, the thought is often accompanied by some iteration of Country. Although it’s understandable, the idea is far from complete, for hiding in plain sight amidst the musical genre garnering the vast majority of attention — and with a level of success and influence rivaling many of his Country music contemporaries — is Yelawolf.
Although known, understandably so, for his work in the rap/hip-hop genres, Yelawolf is a storyteller to the core. He comes from a uniquely Southern storytelling tradition: unvarnished, raw, and atmospheric. Real. The musical genres he occupies and how his records are produced serve the stories he tells.
This isn’t to say he hasn’t mastered the recording arts. Yelawolf and his musical collaborators are adept at manifesting his lyricism in the aural realm, sometimes creating sonic movies on dusty Southern roads lined by kudzu-smothered trees steeped in humidity. Or asphalt-covered urban landscapes inhabited by the forgotten and overlooked.
He’s just as at home rapping to a beat on an 808 drum machine as he is singing melodies backed by strings and an acoustic guitar. But no matter the sonic landscape, it is inspired by his writing. And he invites you to walk beside him as he explores these worlds in an unflinching, brutally honest way.
The first time I met him, he introduced himself as Wolf. Born Michael Wayne Atha, he eventually landed upon Yelawolf as his professional name, but everyone around him calls him Wolf. So, for this story and to keep it simple, I’m referring to him as a Wolf moving forward.
Born in Gadsden, Alabama, Wolf came early to being on the move. His father “was nowhere to be found.” His mother, who was 16 years old, had to “hit the ground running.” As a young child, he bounced back and forth between his mother’s and grandparent’s households.
When his mom began a long-term relationship with a sound and lighting tech who worked with a variety of artists — including REO Speedwagon, Ted Nugent, Aerosmith, and 10,000 Maniacs, Wolf became “steeped in the music industry” at an early age.
They ended up in Franklin, Tennessee, for a moment of stability. But the relationship didn’t last, and mother and son moved to Nashville’s Antioch area. Wolf says, “They were formidable years.”
The formative years soon followed. Asked about the genesis of his lyrical sensibilities, he immediately goes to skateboarding and, specifically, skateboard culture. Answering the question requires a framework of time and place.
Skateboard culture lights the fuse
“I started skateboarding when I was six,” Wolf says. “My uncles in Alabama were all big skateboarders. Their era was pool skating, and there was a big skate park in Gadsden.
“The scene there came out of nowhere and doesn’t make any sense now,” he continues. “If you know Gadsden, you’re like, ‘Why? Why did that even happen?’ Old guys will tell you about the pool scene in Alabama, particularly in Gadsden.”
By the time he landed in Antioch, Wolf says unequivocally, “Skateboarding was my thing. Through skateboarding and the skateboarders in my neighborhood — there were around 20 of us, there was this flood of underground hip-hop coming through skate tapes, like actual skate videos.”
Watching the videos also exposed him to the music in them. “I discovered Souls of Mischief — the whole West Coast scene … and the New York scene,” says Wolf. “Heavy metal, punk rock. Skateboarding’s always been open about the music and how it interacts with skateboarders. There was an onslaught of music that was coming from that scene alone.”
During the interview, one thing became clear from the outset: Wolf has thought about who he is and where he fits into the world. He has the easy-going charm of someone comfortable in their own skin; who knows who they are.
“I had a pretty advanced ear for hip-hop to be so young because I was tied into that culture. Like, with Souls of Mischief, I was really influenced by their lyrical cadences and how they were writing.”
Rap is a universal cadence to all genres
Although he was immersed in the influences permeating skateboard culture, Wolf also drew from other sources. “A friend who might be from the streets of Antioch but unaffiliated with skateboarding whatsoever, his music tastes would be Three 6 Mafia, 8Ball & MJG, and the Southern shit. So, I was getting all the pieces of hip hop from all the coasts.
“The culture of each place was very specific,” Wolf continues. “West coast sounded like West coast, New York sounded like New York. Atlanta. Tennessee. Texas. Florida had its bass sounds like 2Live Crew.”
To risk stating the obvious, the ’90s was a different era. Before smartphones and the Internet, music discovery required IRL effort. “Back then it was really pure because you didn’t have any social media to trade sounds,” he says. “You didn’t get it till you got it.” Music not played on mainstream radio was only available through “mix tapes, record stores, and word of mouth.”
But music from the street wasn’t the only place he was picking up sounds. “In-house, I had all this classic Country and classic rock because of my mother and her people.” By day, it was the music he and friends were discovering on the street, and by night, “it was a Tom Petty album, front and back, or Led Zeppelin, or Dwight Yoakam” from his mom’s vinyl collection.
It was, in a way, a musical gumbo, but he didn’t have a recipe. He didn’t recognize the need for a recipe or that one even existed. Although all the flavors were there, the cultural dynamics of the music Wolf was exposed to didn’t start making sense “until I was around 15.” Even then, he says, “It wasn’t until years later that I was able to tie it all together into what is my sound.”
The decision to pursue music to pay the bills came when Wolf was 19, living the skateboarder’s dream of “squattin’ in old fraternity houses and eatin’ at Food Not Bombs” in Berkley, California.
“I kept getting hurt, kept getting fucked up on the street skateboarding,” he says. “The was a clear difference between being a professional and an amateur. I saw pros. I skated with pros. There was a difference, and I just knew it wasn’t going to happen.”
Meanwhile, when he would rap in a circle, performing one of his written works or one of his beats, “Everybody turned around.” His friends’ encouragement fed his ego and made him believe, “Wow, I can do this.”
Reflecting on that time, Wolf grins and says, “But at that point, it was ego chasing talent.”
The superpower comes into view
It took a while for Wolf’s talent to catch up with his ego. “It wasn’t until I was living in a trailer park in Huntsville, Alabama,” he explains. “That was where the visual side of it and the musical side of it came together.
“I thought, ‘Oh man, if I could describe that dude, with that mullet, with that beat truck with the mud tires — if I could somehow make the juxtaposition of that person playing Three 6 Mafia in the trailer park?’ Then I’ve figured it out.”
As they say, it was a ‘burning bush’ moment when the clouds parted, and the way forward became clear.
“When I decided to keep it absolutely über real about my reality is when the light bulb went off,” Wolf explains. “‘Oh, I’m a white boy from Alabama. This is my story. It’s OK to talk about Johnny Cash; it’s OK to talk about Metallica; it’s OK to talk about Pantera; it’s OK to talk about Wu-Tang — all at the same time. That’s my superpower.“
Snapping his fingers, he says, “It just clicked. From there, it just like, snowballed. It got more exaggerated, more intense, more defined. Really, what is now Slumerican came from that experience. Those years spent in that world.”
In his presence, there is an energy behind what he’s saying as he channels the power of the moment. Figuring out how to bring his epiphany to life was still to come, but he’d found the path and knew it.
Wolf also realized he had access to and understood the cultural milieu needed to develop his artistic vision.
“I had Antioch in my back pocket at that time,” he says. “You know, living off Bell Road as a kid — my friends were literally trappin’ on the corner and selling crack, but then I went back to the trailer park, I’m like, ‘Oh shit — this is the tie that binds.’
“I’m seeing, we all like the same shit, and I’m also seeing we all live on the same financial side,” he says. “Projects, ghettos, trailer parks, that whole thing: there was the story. Even back-country folks on food stamps living 40 minutes off the grid; these are all people speaking the same language. Bring all that shit together and connect it, and I’ll have something special.”
The street and hustle made Wolf well-equipped for the journey. Bouncing around geographically as a kid imbued him with a shark-like quality — to swim is to breathe. Sitting still isn’t an option. All the music and culture he absorbed in his formative years could now be harnessed for a purpose. And he never looked back.
“I went to Atlanta and caught Outcast and Goodie Mob and everything that was going on there. And then I’d go back to Huntsville and the trailer park.” Stirring his finger, he says, “Controlled chaos, I guess you could say.”
And from there, “I just kept etching away, man. Etching away at the art.”
To be around him for any length of time makes one thing clear: Wolf’s devotion to his art is profound. It permeates the space around him. And speaking with him about his art makes something else clear: He’s willing to put in the time and effort required to achieve his vision.
Mastering the craft
Fundamental to this is something he understood when the light bulb went off in Huntsville. To reach the place he saw for himself as an artist, he first had to master the craft.
“Hip-hop, as I grew up on it, a huge part of it was just wordplay, period,” he explains. “To be metaphorically impressive. Double-entendres. Similes. Wrapping words into complex poetry so you can put them over rhythm and cadence.
“I had a fuckin’ stack of notebooks by the time I was 17 years old past my waist that was basically just gibberish,” Wolf continues. “It was the art of shadowboxing with syllables and words and rhymes. Mapping that into a song — that was very hard. At one point, it was very easy to be complex and impressive. But how do I simplify this into my story?
“Look, I wanted to go to New York because Wu-Tang painted that picture for me. I wanted to go to Atlanta because Outkast painted the picture of what that was for me. Compton: Dr. Dre, N.W.A., Eazy-E, Ice Cube; Memphis: 8Ball & MJG, Three 6 Mafia. They painted a picture of what that was.”
Wolf pauses momentarily to formulate his thoughts as he approaches the crux of the matter. Speaking intently, he says, “So, I was like, ‘How am I going to describe and how am I going to want people to know more about where I’m from? What cultural picture am I painting as an artist?‘
“That was difficult, but I remember thinking, if I could take physical items around me and paint a picture of who I was with physical items … what’s one thing that’s synonymous with country?”
After a pregnant pause, he says with a shit-eating grin: “Chainsaws.”
WTF? Are we about to veer off into Monty Python now?
But then Wolf starts rapping:
I’m a lumberjack with a chainsaw
Looking up at a tree fifty feet tall
I’m gonna crank that chainsaw
Just to watch that thang fall
“And then I turned being a lumberjack into being the best MC ever,” he explains. “Chopping up MCs. But I was using Alabama as a foundation to build that character.
“And then, it was trucks, fishing poles, West Virginia coal miner shit. I just kept digging, digging, digging deeper into that character.”
OK, the chainsaw thing is beginning to make sense. But there’s still a strange feeling that I could have this conversation with Steve Earle. In a way, lyrically speaking, they are brothers from a different mother.
Wolf kept digging. “For a while it was pretty complex. The irony is, all that complexity made writing simple songs extremely hard,” he says. “It’s very hard to be simple and impressive. But I had good references.”
To the casual music listener, the lyrics and genre are of a piece. However, as Wolf chased down his own identity as an artist, he realized that genres are just wrappers for lyrics.
“Rap is a universal cadence to all genres,” he asserts, and then starts rapping:
The devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for a soul to steal, he was in a bind, he was way behind, he was looking to make a deal
“You take those verses and put them to an 808, and that’s a hip-hop record.
“There’s a lot of talking in Country — there’s a lot of rap in Country. Johnny Cash does a lot of rapping. But the musical base made it Country, made it something else.”
By drawing on various genres, from Cash to Ghetto Boy to Pantera, Wolf learned how to craft songs that told his story. The picture he wanted to paint began to emerge.
To set up what he’s driving at, Wolf goes into rapping Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day”:
Just waking up in the morning gotta thank God
I don’t know but today seems kinda odd
No barking from the dog, no smog
And mama cooked the breakfast with no hog
“Oh, it’s that simple!” he says, reflecting on the lyric. “Painting an easy picture. My grandmother — Mamaw, may she rest in peace — grew up on Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and that stuff was always in the house, too. We had a close relationship, and she would say to me, ‘I love what you do; I just don’t know what you’re talking about!’” A big smile appears as he quotes his grandmother.
In the education of the artist who became Yelawolf, these moments resonated. The ability to distill a concept into its simplest lyrical form without compromising its emotional impact and meaning was the goal.
Wolf is prolific and has well-earned accolades and acclaim for his achievements as an artist. He’s collaborated with the biggest names in the world of popular music, ranging from Eminem to Wynonna.
So, while choosing the approach for this story, it was decided to leave the historiography to others. Besides, most of it can be found online.
The genre is a wrapper — from Love Story to War Story
With that said, exploring how he became who he is as an artist and what makes him tick, one of his songs, “Have a Great Flight” from Love Story (2015), stands out.
“I made it a mission in life to write Mamaw a song,” Wolf says. “If I could write my grandmother a song, what would it sound like? And that ended up being ‘Have A Great Flight.’”
He starts singing the call-and-response lyrics of the first verse:
Where’s my calling angel?
At the coffin
Where’s my blue sky?
At the coffin
A pretty bouquet and a red rose
At the coffin
Darling, don’t cry
At the coffin
Over my soul
And into the chorus:
So have a great flight
Have a great flight outta here, I suppose
“It ended up being one of my best songs, and I wrote that for her. And then at the end, just to give her a piece of what I had done,” he launches into the rap part of the song:
And nothing ever did feel so real but this time
My time, my mind is gone, turn the lights back on
Baby I’m in the next room but is it gonna be long
’Til I see you again
“So at the end I go into this complex cadence to say, ‘I gave you this, now try to listen to this other thing,” he says with a smile. “That was for her.”
Superpower. Yelawolf seeks the ties that bind and seeks ways to communicate with people despite the differences, whether based on culture, age, creed, color, social status, or otherwise.
“That was a groundbreaking song for me,” Wolf says. “Not just for me as an artist, but for my fans. How far can I take them? They loved it, loved to hear that side. That was another eye-opening thing, too. Fans don’t know what they want until you give it to them. A lot of artists will hold shit back because they are afraid to disappoint their fans. They don’t want to change or try something new because what they’ve always done has always worked.
“Even if they’re talented enough or have the creativity to do it, they put up a wall,” he continues. “And I had to break down that wall, because I had so much more to offer, so much more to talk about. You, know, I have real country roots, so I should be able to do that as well. I should be able to do rock & roll, as well.”
The Love Story album was an artistic turning point on several levels. The sessions for the song “Tennessee Love” set things in motion.
“I brought in Robby Turner, the pedal steel player,” says Wolf. “Josh Hedley was on those sessions. And we had a fiddle player in the room. I’m like, man, I’ve never heard this before. Country instruments done this well over a hip-hop bed.
“Then using my story,” he starts singing:
I’d never let someone straight up disrespect you
I’d never let someone call you out your name
I’ll always be the one that runs up to protect you
’Cause I know if I was down you’d come and do the same
So let’s pack it up and move our life to Nashville
Build a studio in the house and do our thing
And I’ll take you out and we’ll go honky tonkin’
Get drunk and fall in Tennessee Love
“That was writing the Tennessee story in a hip-hop record. The same story that’s been told so many times — falling in love at a honky-tonk bar. I was like, ‘Man this is the bed for Love Story.’”
“It was a huge moment in my creative career, man. It changed everything.”
It was his sophomore release on Interscope/Shady Records. The first release for the label, Radioactive, came with an entirely different set of pressures.
“I was a white Southern rapper signed to Eminem’s label, so everyone was like, ‘This is gonna be the biggest thing in the world. We need big singles.’ Big single, big singles, big singles! It was a race for a hit record, but the grit was kind of lost.”
Nevertheless, the experience earned him some freedom when he began working on Love Story, and his attitude was, “Alright, now, can I do me?” Wolf says the powers that be “were like, sure, go to Nashville and do the record you want. See how that turns out!”
It put him back in artistic control but meant that he had something to prove now. “I wanted it to be the biggest record of my career. And I wanted it to be the most elevated piece of Southern culture, bringing in all those Country influences, rock & roll influences, hip-hop influences. The best it could ever be done is all I wanted to do. I dare anyone to try to do better. That’s it.”
He might’ve been setting a high bar, but “I didn’t have any competition at the time.” And it worked.
Yelawolf talks about phases of his career as though they are chapters in a book. Next chapter, turn the page, move on. He doesn’t seem to dwell on things, much less spend time living in the past. It’s all there like the previous chapters in a book are. But what’s the point of re-reading the fifth chapter when there’s the sixth to look forward to?
His latest effort, War Story, exemplifies this. “The reason I called it War Story — as opposed to Love Story, is because it’s the opposite in vibe,” he says.
“Nashville, the Nashville sound is, from my perspective, this wash of everyone in the world who wants a piece of it. And that’s OK, I mean, come get it. Music is for everyone, and you can do anything you want to do. There are no gatekeepers to this shit. Any artist can do whatever they want to do. Who am I to judge that? I’ve done everything I’ve wanted to do.
“But the thing is, I saw another gap open up in hip-hop,” Wolf continues. “Oh, right, now everyone’s going Country. I’m going back to hip-hop. And that was it. Like, dude, you guys left the door wide open on this hip-hop shit.”
Now that he’s mastered his superpower, the artist Yelawolf is looking for new boundaries to push.
War Story
by
Yelawolf
Available now on vinyl and CD at yelawolf.com
