The News Herald (Willoughby, OH)
YelaWolf embraces being independent artist
It’s been a sick year for rapper, songwriter, performer and entrepreneur YelaWolf, who not only made his cinematic debut this past summer in the beloved award-winning movie, “The Peanut Butter Falcon,” but also watched his distinctive whiskey brand Creek Water impressively win a half dozen awards.
Then there’s his music, which over the better part of the last decade has carved out a loyal fan base that continues to grow.
Earlier in 2019, YelaWolf, who returns to Northeast Ohio for a Nov. 14 show at the House of Blues, released his final Shady Records album “Trunk Muzik 3” only to follow it up with his recently dropped follow-up “Ghetto Cowboy.”
The new project is an unfettered affair that finds the Nashville-based artist rediscovering the pros and cons of being a truly independent recording act.
“The double-edged sword of being independent is, on one side you’ve got the freedom of not having anyone to answer to creatively and structurally, and on the other side you have nobody to answer to,” said YelaWolf, calling from a highway somewhere in Alabama.
“So freedom is like the scariest part of being independent, but we’ve earned it. We’ve spent enough years in the game to understand how this works. We’ve created our own network, and we understand the process. We were trained up really. It was time to jump out of the nest and do our own thing.”
As far as the quick turn-around between albums, well, that was the point of going independent.
“We didn’t know it would happen so quickly, but again, that’s just the freedom of being independent,” YelaWolf said. “There are no other artists to get in the way of a release. For previous albums, sometimes I would be waiting almost a year for the release and the rollout and going through all of the political nonsense.
“I’ve always made music pretty quickly, which I guess that’s all relative, but I had most of ‘Ghetto Cowboy’ in the pocket before I did ‘Trunk Muzik III.’”
Stylistically, YelaWolf calls the new album an amalgamation of all of his other projects, which have a distinct southern-culture vibe delivered with a hip-hop and rock’n’roll flair.
The highly-anticipated project features single releases “Opie Taylor” and “Unnatural Born Killer.” So far, the former is being positively received on Spotify, Tidal, Amazon and across iHeartRadio.
While the most challenging new song was “Box Chevy 7,” the self-proclaimed music nerd is most excited about “Opie Taylor.”
“It’s funny the song is doing really well right now, getting picked up on radio,” YelaWolf said. “The song is about not being able to get a single or not listening to producers. The whole idea of ‘Opie Taylor’ is just not caring.
“It’s kind of a shot of this is why I never had a hit record — because I never listened to anybody — but it ended up being a record that could get the most attention on radio. So it’s ironic.”
The natural next question was whether YelaWolf reached out to the original Opie Taylor, Ron Howard?
“No, but I wanted badly for him to be in the video,” YelaWolf said. “It was a crapshoot, so I didn’t even intend to get in touch. I’m sure he would have laughed, ‘Yeah, right.’”
Well, odds are Howard will hear about the track and discover YelaWolf. Imagine if the rapper gets an acting gig from the Academy Award-winning director.
“Now that would be sick,” YelaWolf said.