The biggest inspiration for that, not particularly for their music but the way they went about their careers: Andre 3000 and Kid Rock. I think more artists need to take chances like this. Even if it was a strictly hip-hop to straight-rap verse I’ve always sprinkled in the idea - maybe it might have been a Johnny Cash or when I was onstage with Big Boi at the BET Awards wearing a Hank Williams shirt - that someday I would like to go there. Because throughout my career, so far I’ve planted seeds of where I was going. So this has kind of been like a calculated risk. It’s unfortunate for some artists that they get stuck in this kind of trap to remain within the same boundary of style, you know? They’ll go off and they’ll play a certain kind of music or they’ll go home and when they’re not playing their own music they’re infatuated with this other style of music and it’s something they really wish they could do or be a part of, but they think their fans will turn on them. Music tends to not allow people to grow up. When did you decide you were going to take these musical risks for the album? People hearing “American You” and backing it, backing where I’m going, really backing what I’m bringing back… the sound and the style has been something I’ve been sitting on for a long time. And then “Whiskey In a Bottle.” And now “American You” and “Best Friend.” So the sequence of the songs, man, has really got me excited. But the reaction to “Till It’s Gone” was good.
You never know what the reaction is truly gonna be. It’s always challenging and you don’t know what’s going to come of it. And the reaction to the songs has been great too. How are you feeling right now? Love Story is a project you’ve been working on for quite some time and it’s finally set to drop.Įvery song that has come out has been really, really exciting for me. When he hopped on the line on a recent afternoon, Yelawolf was unrestricted and transparent, riffing on his take-no-prisoners approach to Love Story, his respect for Andre 3000 and Kid Rock, and why his album didn’t start to make sense until he went to jail. Listening to the back porch-flavored soundscapes of “Till It’s Gone,” “American You” and the Eminem-featuring “Best Friend,” his vision comes into focus.
With the full support of Shady Records boss Eminem, the rapper born Wayne Atha took more than a year writing, recording and linking up with trusted producers to cook up his new LP. “This is the album that I fought for the freedom to do,” he says of Love Story.
I was just there to do it: ‘I’m in!'” he explains), which made him all the more determined to stick to his outside-the-box vision for Love Story. Wolf is the first to admit that Radioactive was an over-thought and undercooked project (“I was anybody’s dog on that album. Yelawolf & Eminem Team Up for ‘Best Friend’: Listen