YelaWolf - Radioactive Album Review

Artist: YelaWolf
Album: Radioactive
Label: Get-O-Vision/DGC/Shady/Interscope Records
Executive Producers: Eminem & Kawan “KP” Prather

The last two years have been a wild one for Gadsden, Alabama native YelaWolf. At the beginning of 2010 he dropped his critically acclaimed “Trunk Muzik” mixtape with DJ Burn One that began a large buzz ignited by the thumping “Pop The Trunk” as well as highlight guest appearances with Slim Thug (on “I Run”), Juelz Santana (“Mixing Up The Medicine”), and Big Boi of OutKast (“You Aint No DJ”). The mixtape garnered the attention of Interscope Records leading to his first official release with the label, the EP “Trunk Muzik: 0-60” later that year. Following the success of that project YelaWolf signed with the biggest rapper on the planet, Eminem, and his Shady Records. Now, YelaWolf releases his first major label LP “Radioactive” which has been one of the more highly anticipated projects of 2011.

“Radioactive” opens up with the title track which features a warning sound going off and then a message about a nuclear explosion. Then, Yela emerges on the thumping beat and almost whispers his lines and gets louder as the track goes on and Yela’s flow matches the drums in the beat. This track is just Yela spitting punchline after punchline to get the album kicked off. The next track is one of a few surprising collaborations. “Get Away” features Shawty Fatt (of Yela’s Slummerican group) and New Orleans legend Mystikal. Phonix Beats provides the backdrop as Yela, Shawty, and Mystikal spit about “getting away.” This is Mystikal’s first high profile guest appearance since his release from prison earlier this year and will give any southern hip hop flashbacks of his early days. Mystikal’s stop and go sped up flow is actually very similar to Yela’s so it fits perfectly.

“Let’s Roll” is the newest single from the album and next up to bat on the album featuring Detroit rapper-singer Kid Rock on the incredibly smooth hook and The Audibles, Mr. Pyro, and Eminem providing the production on this one. Yela spends the majority of the song talking about life in the south:

“yeah, now let me welcome you to my small town/
big trucks in the yard, big trucks on the wall/
Country folks all around/
how I was raised, 808 drums quake and they shake that Box ‘88/
and the dope boys hotter than Hell’s gate, but I/
still in the shade, with a fold out chair and a 30 pack on the back of that tailgate/
A-L-A-B-A-M-A, I’m off, I might pee in a lake/
I might to Talladega and see me a race/
and bring me a case/
yeah, I’m bringing a case, I’m getting throwed off”

Next up is the lead single from the album, “Hard White (Up In The Club)” featuring Lil’ Jon. Having Lil’ Jon on the hook really is about as perfect as it comes when you see that this song oozes crunk music and would have fit perfectly in the early 2000’s golden era of Crunk Music with the nasty, thumping production and Yela’s excited verses. Yela really knows how to ride a beat and mesh his flow with the beat to sound completely in synch better than almost anyone. Things switch to a much darker tone on “Growing Up In The Gutter” featuring Slummerican’s Rittz. WillPower of SupaHot Beats is the producer that really has crafted the YelaWolf sound over the last couple of years and this beat may be one of his most epic. YelaWolf almost whispers his first verse, then screams the hook, then Rittz (who has garnered a fairly large buzz based off his first mixtape “White Jesus” recently) comes in and does his best to still the show with a stellar verse, and finally Yela closes the song out another near whispered verse. Yela and Rittz weave a tale about being raised in the “gutter” and the struggles and the evils that you see. If this one doesn’t impress you, nothing will.

Next up is the song that drew the most interest and hype ever since it was announced this past summer. “Throw It Up” features the unlikely collaboration of YelaWolf with former Three-6 Mafia member Gangsta Boo and Eminem. WillPower and Eminem set another unlikely backdrop for this insane collaboration with the crazy keys and horns on the beat while Yela really sets the tone early with a crazy verse. Gangsta Boo then reverts to her Triple 6 days with the chanting hook and a start-and-go rapid fire verse followed by the surprising Eminem verse where he does his best YelaWolf impression. Rather than the sped up rapid fire/double time flow that Eminem has really been perfecting over the past couple of years, he goes the start-and-stop flow mixed with the rapid fire delivery. A very un-crunk like beat mixed with an unthinkable collaboration makes this one of the most interesting songs of the year and could very well end being a hit if released as the next single.

Following “Throw It Up” is a skit with Eminem & Yela where Eminem asks Yela to do a song for “the girls” which sees a funny exchange between the two.

Eminem: What I think the album is missing right now is, like, a song for girls.
YelaWolf: …what, for b*tches?
Eminem: NO, for girls. Like a love song.
YelaWolf:… no…
Eminem: Well, we need one.
YelaWolf: Like… love song, love song?
Eminem: Yeaaaah man… b*tches love, love songs.

Next up the mood shifts to that very “love song” with “Good Girl” featuring Poo Bear doing the crooning on the chorus. This is a dedication to all the good females out there, not the hood rats/hoes. This one is very reminiscent of “Love Is Not Enough” from “Trunk Muzik”, and good very well have big time crossover potential for the radio. The Audibles and Poo Bear handle the production on this one. Yela’s patriotic “Made In The U.S.A.” (featuring Priscilla Renea) where Yela makes his dedication to the “American Dream” while singer Priscilla Renea not only provides a hook but also her own verse. She sounds very similar to Rihanna (and not surprisingly has done some writing for Rihanna) while mostly pop producer Emanuel Kiriakou provides the production. Yela describes all Americans from preachers to factory workers to truck drivers to gang bangers and dope dealers:

“we some gun toting, church going, 18 wheel rolling/
bag slanging, flag waving, at the dinner table praying/
old school yard fighting, beer drinking, hell raising/
hard working, blue collar, earn it all due paying/
illegal weed smoking, dope cooking, dirt dealers/
on the corner bible preachers/
Hollywood dream seekers/
muddy water swimming in/
Rock & Roll all the time/
straight from the assembly line/
and that’s how it’s made!”

Diplo produces the next track as FeFe Dobson provides the hook and Yela speeds things up with his machine gun like flow as he shows why he’s an “Animal” on these beats. WillPower returns to the boards for “The Hardest Love Song In The World” as Yela turns to another song for the ladies. J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League handle the crazy production on “Write Your Name” which features Mona Moua on the hook. Yela’s laid back flow is a change and comes off nicely over the production. Yela tells three different stories of 3 average people and how average people can be “stars.” Yela really shows his dexterity here not only with the subject matter but also that he actually switches up his flow on all 3 verses going from the laid back flow on the first verse, to a stop and go type of low, and then finally a more aggressive delivery on the final verse. WillPower and Eminem return to the boards on “Everything I Love The Most” where WillPower combines guitar strings with the baseline and drums as Yela dedicates this one to the females as well.

Next up is “Radio” produced by the man who originally “discovered” Yela and placed him on Slim Thug’s “I Run”: Jim Jonsin. Yela does his best crooning on the hook and talks about the current state of garbage being played on the radio and really professes his love for music, and namely hip hop. Jim Jonsin’s production is as good as ever here as well.

“you’ll never hear Black Star cause the program director’s mostly def/
and you’ll never hear Triple Six cause we live in the midst of the Bible Belt/
but that’s where the light is felt, so let it shine, let em rhyme/
Let em hustle, let em grind, nothing wrong with the truth sometimes/
sometimes the truth is dark, but the darkness sparks the truest art/
and you didn’t even know you had a window till the tornado blew it apart/
if Eric Clapton can sing about cocaine and there’s no harm/
Then I can write about guns, I can rap about girls, I can sing about money & cars/
not that my money is large, lets talk about broke as a joke/
lets talk about getting evicted, everything you own thrown out on the road/
and maybe that there goes gold, sh*t maybe its platinum sold/
but they don’t wanna see the green rings from the pirates gold/
no hold up rewind”

The mood shifts again on “Slumerican Sh*tizen” as Yela and Killer Mike take WillPower’s string heavy beat and turn it into a hard anthem to the slums and Killer Mike takes the chance to vent about the government and other crappy things in the world:

“people why sh*t is so wrong/
why they wont let all our soldiers come home/
why them boys who get caught with such small amounts of dope/
on the Ave. do birds so long/
they birds so long by the time they get to come home/
mamas is gone and babies is grown/
and baby mama that was tight in that thong/
fat as f*ck and her body all gone/
pay for it cash her ass is gone/
she never worked so the stash is gone/
government rations she gets on/
year after year she get check after check/
a gangster come home already in debt/
the government say you owe $50k/
for all the free lunches that yo baby ate/
do you go legit and never have sh*t?/
or ‘G’ up and re-up and get you a brick?/
get you a brick!”

“Radioactive” closes out with the aptly titled “The Last Song” produced by WillPower in which Yela says will be his final letter/song/mention of his dead beat father and Yela really gets personal here:

“everybody’s asking me lately where I’m from/
they wanna know what I’ve been through and what dirt I’ve done/
but man if I told you what I’ve seen and been through then you probably run off/
you’re scared of the truth, so its dead in secret, lined in chalk/
see I’ve been lost ever since I could walk/
looking for my daddy and anyone of mamma’s boyfriends who would talk/
or listen to me when I spoke instead of looking at me like a joke/
leaving me behind, leaving me to cry when you treated my momma like a ho/
but I learned quick that my daddy wasn’t ever gonna come around/
and I didn’t give a sh*t cause me and my momma, we held it down/
no new kicks first day of school I’m goodwill bound/
but when you come from the trentch that’s how you learn to walk around/
so I don’t give a f*ck if you ever lay eyes on top of my new shoes homie/
I just wanted you to know I didn’t need a dollar from you, I got em myself/
so if you find yourself in the middle of the floor with the bottle drinking yourself lonely/
then you can keep company with the picture of me in the magazine on the shelf, turn the page”

The iTunes Deluxe Edition of the album features 3 bonus songs: “Whip It” (produced by The Audibles), “I See You” (produced by WillPower, The Audibles, & Sasha Sirota), and “In This World” (produced by WillPower & Eminem). One of the questions heading into this album was would the involvement of Eminem “change” YelaWolf and his very distinct style and sound. And honestly the answer to that question is a definite yes in a sense. The sound and feel here is VERY different than “Trunk Muzik” on some levels and it may very well turn off some fans that were hooked by that album. The influence of Eminem is very apparent on songs that feature the pop stars which is something he didn’t a lot of on “Recovery” (to great success) with songs with stars like Pink and Rihanna as well as Bruno Mars on the more recent Bad Meets Evil album. I think there were probably too many more “softer” songs on the album that had they been replaced with more harder edged songs like “Get Away”, “Growing Up In The Gutter”, “Hard White”, “Slumerican”, etc. it would have come off better. Especially later in the album there is 3 songs in a row that are catered to the females, probably one or two too many there. YelaWold definitely showed growth in his song writing for sure and went to the more personal songs a few times here. “Radioactive” is an excellent debut and hopefully just the beginning of things for YelaWolf.