Yelawolf

Envision a humid world of slow-rolling Monte Carlos and slaughter houses; meth labs and rusting Mossberg’s, inked up arms and haircuts that look like they’ve been chopped by hatchets. Trunk muzik. Southern Pine trees, smoking pine, and pine boxes. Call him Catfish Billy or Yelawolf, just don’t go make him go pop the trunk on you.

Enter Yelawolf’s Alabama—a backwoods badlands of sinners and salvation. He claims Gadsden, but he’s from everywhere. Born Michael Wayne Atha to an absentee father and a bartender mother, he attended over 15 schools while soaking up slang and spiritualism in Baton Rouge, Antioch, Tennessee, and Atlanta. While trying to stay afloat in a turbulent home life addled by drug and alcohol abuse, he discovered rap music in Tennesee and it soon became an obsession, along with the classic rock (Lynard Skynard, Pink Floyd, The Allman Brothers) that he was raised on.

His music is a new strain of soul food, the traditional Southern cuisine that fortified the Dungeon Family, 8ball & MJG, and UGK, but infused by Yela’s unique experiences as a cross-country vagabond with no place to call home. And, of course, his unparalleled ability to snap off double-timed staccato raps unlike anything you’ve ever heard.