He feels pretty different to Bubba to me. Bubba constructs and then fake-hides-behind his down home ignance to a much greater degree - i.e. Bubba and Kid Rock are closer to each other than Yelawolf is to either I reckon (obv this schtick works really well for Bubba; I feel rather more ambivalent re Kid Rock).
In his actual rapping Yelawolf doesn't seem to be flaunting his white southernness topically or stylistically to nearly the same extent. To the extent it bleeds through on tunes like "Pop The Trunk" or "I Wish" or "Love Is Not Enough" the "set up" feels pretty minimal, if only because he almost always strains the issue through descriptive storytelling.
Like, after seeing the "Pop The Trunk" clip I can see how the track plays the old white dad's violence of the first verse against the violence of his mostly black friendship circle in the second, but it would never have occurred to me think that or to go "YES I SEE WHAT YOU'RE DOING".
TBH if there's a "character" I associate Yelawolf with it's the younger partner-in-crime in Breaking Bad.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:46 (thirteen years ago) link
i feel like you guys are being kind of cynical -- of course the white trash thing is a good marketing tool & since he grew up poor (as far as we know) & not like asher roth there's no real card checking going on, but what is the guy supposed to do? act like he's not white trash from alabama? what 'persona' do you want him to 'assume' deej?
i mean there's definitely a double standard here -- like, no one is grading (ahem) various black gangster rappers on the curve of 'redundant personas', so i'm not sure why yelawolf is getting this intense scrutiny & skepticism?
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, November 23, 2010 3:34 PM (13 minutes ago) Bookmark
we totally grade black rappers this way too! we hate drake remember? i like waka because he does feel unique
i think yela is getting it bcuz of the video/clothing/projected image not matching the rapping style...not saying its fair i just cant help but feel like fans are latching onto some projected country-ness/real-ness that doesnt exist. i liked yela a lot more when he was anonymous white dude from the g-side album! bcuz, like, it was all about his rapping. the theatricality of rap is v important imo
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:50 (thirteen years ago) link
also i really like 'pop the trunk' so i cant really say its the 'problem' here
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:51 (thirteen years ago) link
also some personas, like anono-thug from queensbridge, play themselves better as archetypal things than others do. i dunno, i feel like lee harvey from lapdance sold this better even if he was 6000x worse rapper.
yela is, like, to adept for the image his projecting. it still feels contradictory
i would like to note i observed early on my argument itt would be somewhat weird & challopy
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:52 (thirteen years ago) link
yela is, like, too adept for the image hes projecting.
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:55 (thirteen years ago) link
Was kinda surprised by the emergent great white hope of country-ness angle because initially I thought yela's visual style was more of a straight skater thing, which seems pretty solidly suburban to me. At any rate his actual look seems to project "trenchcoat dude listening to linkin park" rather than "country-ness" to me.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 21:57 (thirteen years ago) link
i'm kinda lolling now just at the words "harvey from lapdance"
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:07 (thirteen years ago) link
also some personas, like anono-thug from queensbridge, play themselves better as archetypal things than others do.
i don't think this is true
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Hah, I had this too, might just be all the meth references though.
― Matt DC, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:14 (thirteen years ago) link
yela doesn't code as country at all to me, there are no sonic signifiers and he doesn't affect it at all (on record) - i don't think he feels suburban either but i'm not really sure how to break down the various poor white trailer park demographics in the US. if he's attached to anything outside of hip-hop it's obviously hard rock - this album is basically rock in places and he's spoken of it in interviews.
i just cant help but feel like fans are latching onto some projected country-ness/real-ness that doesnt exist
who are "yelawolf fans" now?!
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:23 (thirteen years ago) link
can't speak for anyone else but i'm not really concerned with the validity of the image or persona or anything -- i'm just saying even as a marketing tool it's kind of like jeez dude you've got skills, maybe don't work so hard to play up an angle Kid Rock and Bubba Sparxxx already did in a broader and more pop context
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:34 (thirteen years ago) link
who knows what is truth & what is projection but i still can't help but see that as asking him to wash away his identity -- what would he rap about?
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:37 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't mean that at all -- i'm just saying stuff like the Lynyrd Skynyrd verse trying to tie that into rap or the Bob Dylan hook, it's all kind of a cutesy clever heavyhanded way of him working the same "I have a foot in two different worlds!!!" thing that pretty much every white rapper has to grapple with on some level or another.
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:48 (thirteen years ago) link
yeah theres something just stilted to me about the presentation, its not at all about authenticity or lack thereof -- bubba could be a corporate ceo for all i care if he was making songs like 'nowhere'
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:51 (thirteen years ago) link
honestly i think some of what al & i are talking about is stuff that, if smoothed over, would make him a more popular artist!
except you're being pretty vague -- wearing trucker hats?
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:53 (thirteen years ago) link
This what I have:http://www.2dopeboyz.com/2010/01/01/yelawolf-trunk-muzik-mixtape/
I assumed it was the album proper, but apparently not?
― A brownish area with points (chap), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 22:58 (thirteen years ago) link
do i need to like go dig up lyrics and interview quotes? we're obviously talking about more than just his look.
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:00 (thirteen years ago) link
"Trunk Muzik" is the mixtape that was released for free in January, "Trunk Muzik 0-60" is the major label EP that was released commercially this week that features about half the same songs as the mixtape with some new stuff.
an EP with 12 tracks is not an EP! do they just want to sell it cheap/not give it the same weight as an album statement? or are the new tracks "bonus"?
― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:05 (thirteen years ago) link
major label hip hop has been really big on "EPs" that are actually album-length, it's been a big mystifying trend for the last year or so. it's basically just a weird way of them being able to release an album without calling it an album so that it doesn't have all the commercial expectations that an album would have.
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:07 (thirteen years ago) link
the other day i saw an artist i know refer to his new release as an "EPixtape," which, just, barf
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:08 (thirteen years ago) link
12 tracks is a little on the short side for a rap album!
― goole, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:09 (thirteen years ago) link
didn't erykah badu insist on referring to worldwide underground as an EP?
whatevz to both of them, if it looks and sounds and is as long as an album...
― lex lex lex lex lex on the track BOW (lex pretend), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:10 (thirteen years ago) link
Maybe I'm misreading you al, but surely the Lyndard Skynard verse is about how irrelevant LS is to people like him (not to mention rap). I guess you could argue that there's a performative contradiction there because by mentioning LS even to dismiss them still establishes you know who they are, but short of deciding it would be better for him never to reference such things, I can't see how he could go about grappling with this stuff in a less egregious manner.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:14 (thirteen years ago) link
i know the thrust of the verse isn't explicitly "rap is like Lynyrd Skynyrd", i'm just saying that kind of heavyhanded "i'm a white rapper from hickville, let me tell you a bit about that" isn't really what i go to his music to hear.
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:16 (thirteen years ago) link
let an ep be an ep
― bows don't kill people, arrows do (Jordan), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:19 (thirteen years ago) link
free the ep
xxp but that's pretty much what he raps about...
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:20 (thirteen years ago) link
unless he's rapping about eating pussy
not on every song
xpost i prefer the eating pussy songs
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:20 (thirteen years ago) link
i mean, didn't bubba already do a really awesome album about that same exact subject matter better?
(i like yelawolf but i don't find him that fascinating as dude)
― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:24 (thirteen years ago) link
i don't understand how all of a sudden bubba sparxxx levels yelawolf's music irrelevant
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:29 (thirteen years ago) link
we have room in our lives for hundreds of black rappers rapping about being poor black dudes but only room for one white rapper rapping about being a poor white dude
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:30 (thirteen years ago) link
can't speak for anyone else but that wasn't at all what i was getting at
― some dude, Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:31 (thirteen years ago) link
i was referring to m@tt's post
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:33 (thirteen years ago) link
not that i really understand your POV either
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:34 (thirteen years ago) link
it doesn't make him irrelevant, but i guess cuz there are so few i feel like that's gonna be the main gist of all the coverage...and a lot of it will act like bubba never happened
(again i LIKE yelawolf i think he makes good music and is good at rapping which i like)
― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:34 (thirteen years ago) link
xp i mean i understand it from the angle that it might hurt his ability to be successful, but artistically i don't
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:35 (thirteen years ago) link
honestly i'm not hating at all, i just feel like i'm gonna have to read hella annoying non-rap outlet personality pieces about yelawolf basically
― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:36 (thirteen years ago) link
i feel like that's gonna be the main gist of all the coverage...and a lot of it will act like bubba never happened
well this isn't anything that yelawolf can control
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:36 (thirteen years ago) link
well yeah probably xp
isn't it CRAZY, he'S WHITE and self defines as a REDNECK and but he LIKES RAP WHICH IS "BLACK" MUSIC what a paradox
― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:37 (thirteen years ago) link
i have room in my life for rappers whether they are black white green or purple
― aka the pope (BIG HOOS aka the steendriver), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:43 (thirteen years ago) link
does yelawolf pass the delmar test?
― there was usic in the cafes at night (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Tuesday, 23 November 2010 23:44 (thirteen years ago) link
yelawolf is a better and more entertaining rapper than bubba sparxxx
― based lord sotosyn (The Reverend), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 00:26 (thirteen years ago) link
― J0rdan S., Tuesday, November 23, 2010 5:30 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
dude havent i been criticizing big krit for the exact same topical genericism that has been done before cf country shit basically being nappy roots as far as subject matter??
― challop and a muff (deej), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 00:32 (thirteen years ago) link
― based lord sotosyn (The Reverend), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 6:26 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
ban the rev
― challop and a muff (deej), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 00:33 (thirteen years ago) link
― some dude, Tuesday, November 23, 2010 5:20 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink
otm
― challop and a muff (deej), Wednesday, 24 November 2010 00:34 (thirteen years ago) link
― challop and a muff (deej), Tuesday, November 23, 2010 6:32 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark
i said i was referring to m@tt's post
― J0rdan S., Wednesday, 24 November 2010 00:35 (thirteen years ago) link
no, he just tanked real fast after his mixtapes.
― Simon H., Wednesday, 8 November 2017 18:36 (six years ago) link
oh yeah, thought maybe something beyond that. i liked the 'Til Its Gone' but thats the only thing ive even heard since radioactive and thats cos it was used on a tv show i was watching.
― Spottie, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 18:41 (six years ago) link
This thread is such a surreal archive. So many people fanning so hard for this vile rapper feigning like they had no understanding of how somebody could find him objectionable
― Evan R, Wednesday, 8 November 2017 20:04 (six years ago) link
EVERYBODY GET THE FUCK UP
― master of nuggets (Neanderthal), Wednesday, 11 December 2019 05:54 (four years ago) link
xpost what was so "vile" about him in the early days?
seems like a weird word to use given, y'know, all the other rappers out there. has Yelawolf ever even had legal trouble? i can't recall any.
― alpine static, Wednesday, 11 December 2019 07:19 (four years ago) link
slumerican shitizen
^this is seriously never going to stop making me lol
― the 500 gats of bartholomew thuggins (upper mississippi sh@kedown), Thursday, November 17, 2011 7:10 PM bookmarkflaglink
― hootenanny-soundtracking clusterfucks about milking cows (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 21 March 2023 13:52 (one year ago) link