Country : USA
Year : 2011
Label : Ghet-O-Vision / Shady Records / DGC / Interscope Records
Genre : Hip-Hop; Rock; Pop
Web Site : Yelawolf Web Site
Yelawolf, Yelawolf, shout three times stronger that name. This is the best, but the best, truly enjoying what makes a hop-hop, rap agent for me, here and now. From the moment I heard "Trunk Muzik 0-60" I knew it, no, I felt it emotionally. And now a few months after my acquaintance with his music, and so now comes the moment that "Radioactive", a brand new album, rocked my fragile emotional hip-hop side. Why? Because Yelawolf has become more pop, but from that it has earned his music. And not only that. He takes his things to a new level. Level in which hip-hop music stay in time and remember.
Just listen to the final piece, "The Last Song" - heartfelt relation of children's dreams, he speak to his parents and in particular his father, who did not see him up there on top, of the covers of major magazines. Feelings that would make any parent, to feel complete and enjoying. Sad flashback, and Yela tell as only he can, to a state in which he can do cry you and to feel every sound as reverberating in your past and in your thinnest concepts of powerful melody.
In the album is gone that aggression in beats (aggression is slightly exaggerated word, I accept) from "Trunk Muzik 0-60" ("Daddy's Lambo"; "Get The Fuck Up"; "Good To Go"; "I Wish" ( Feat. Raekwon); "Trunk Muzik"; "Pop The Trunk"), but here have grown hip-hop, pop kid. Yes, Yelawolf has become more precise and wise in his compositions. Of course, here have them constant Yelawolf recitatives - for womens, cars, parties, gangsta attitude - but here, it seems stay in the background. At the front came palette of sounds - beats, piano, male, female vocals, guitars - with a view to touch you and to feel the magic. And steadily guest appearances by Shawty Fatt; Mystikal; Kid Rock; Lil Jon; Ritz; Gangsta Boo; ubiquitous Eminem; Poo Bear; Priscilla Renea; Fefe Dobson; Mona Moua; Killer Mike, and finish everything here Mr. "Tellin' Stories Like Nobody Else" - Yelawolf.
Indeed, the direction in which it is headed Yelawolf with "Radioactive" I like (matter of mental state and point of view). I mentioned the lack of aggression in a utterance, and here it has that feeling and desire - to reach more people, with what you do, to touch them.
Can Alabama is a state of mind. Well listen to "Write Your Name" (Feat. Mona Moua) with the piano at the beginning and leisure beat, that bring clean clouds in my imagination. This is the anthem for the hometown, no matter where you were born, how you've been down. So you have exactly to sing, if you are really proud of your birthplace. Yelawolf is down to people, doubtless, it does not not forgetting those from Alabama, his home state. This is the spirit of the song - "I'll write your name across the sky. And take away the stars cause you light up the night" - that's all I need.
No matter whether you are the most famous artist or an most ordinary worker in the field. You should know where you coming from, to get where you want. If you're in doubt, that Yelawolf did not realize it, stop to think it, exactly at this moment, and load your mind to a state in which you feel the beat and one complete wholeness. And yes, the voice of Mona Moua is really close to the stars. Stellar.
The story of Yelawolf is indicative of, how you can grow from a small town (Gadsden, Alabama) (nobody to knows who you are), and become a kind of preacher of what really love can do - in this case with him, telling true stories of life (in most cases), and to reach people. Something really important about being an artist. But let's start from the beginning of the album and the first composition in it "Radioactive Introduction" - with a robotic voice of the speaker, reported something important, happens, warnings for heavy rhymes, come to earth, stay cool messages, and Yelawolf speak words so if there is no tomorrow. And warns, that it is radioactive. Radioactive of stories, beats and cool ideas. Reveals it to you and the second "Get Away" (Feat. Shawty Fatt & Mystikal) - "Man, I done been through it all. I done been up and know what it is to fall" - you take the beat and forget who you are, where are you and what are your problems. And snarling rapping of Mystikal up hair on the neck, of course, here has dreamy melody in the background. A third reminds me of the best things of Kid Rock, not only because, he took part in it. Chorus paving roads on difficult places in my mind, and fills me with faith, and Yelawolf piecing tones of rhymes within seconds, which sounds so telling. And so is exactly. Listen amid the lines.
"I made my own lane. Let's roll" - which Kid Rock reminds what done with his voice. Yes, "Let's Roll" (Feat. Kid Rock) is exploder of club emotions, but and listening oneself feel every time better than before. If you have not felt the heavy beat, you will be caught close together with yourself from the fourth "Hard White (Up In The Club)" (Feat. Lil Jon) - "Happy Birthday, I'm feeling brand new" and "Up in the club still don't give a fuck" in a heavy gangsta chainsaw from beats and voices plus the participation of melodious, slightly oriental sounding pleasing female voice, chanting "Na, na - na, na" with charms.
The feeling of severe danger in the atmosphere, as like in some works of Tricky, and very dark trip-hop feeling in "Growin' Up In The Gutter" (Feat. Ritz) - a feeling in me of chemical laboratory in which mixed bad mixtures, from which suffer many people worldwide. Yelawolf know lowlands, and now the rise, so its history can only learn. "Growin 'up in the gutter. No more, fairy tales, and so. No place like hell, no place like home." Heavily and real. To grow among the problems and distress this learn.
Warning to all poor in spirit and with concreted minds boys and girls - to open their eyes to what people have jobs, what they do, because "first laugh, then cry". And not be so tense situation "Throw It Up" (Feat. Gangsta Boo & Eminem) is a sunny sunday mood and pleasant voice and laugh of Gangsta Boo (yes, that's right, nice woman, you guessed it), but the mere mention the name of Eminem doing enough work. His rhymes are tight and sound grown up (think in the direction of very good, like he can describe the whole world in one minute, and to understand it). Finally in the song, in a telephone talk between two people, are some explanations, of what love bitches and girls and, that the second want love songs. Something like a love song has become to the next "Good Girl" (Feat. Poo Bear) - there is a gentle piano, clinking samples, and seductive voice of Poo Bear, while Yelawolf describes one of his days and how it feels, thinking about its good girl. The message is - "To all the bad girls trying to be good." Mellow. Just like the next "Made In The USA" (Feat. Priscilla Renea), but there's a strong pop, soul chorus in which the voice of Priscilla Renea is very close to that of Rihanna, but it's the idea more entering and lazy. A story in the song is about the struggle of people to succeed in America, despite the many obstacles created specifically there. The song begins with the melody of toy - from the cradle to the fight, decisions, choice. Song about lift the spirit. Very powerful song, that Rihanna would do everything to be able to create (here the comparison between Yelawolf and Rihanna you know, that I leave out it totally). Charge is very pop and languorous. And verses "Land of the free, home of the hard, home of the tough, survivors" reveal relentlessly self esteem of the Americans. Can not be denied, that Americans can be proud of many things - characterize immediately art - there have been happen some of the most important and significant things in the art (music, cinema, painting, design, and so etc.), will you deny. But this is another very extensive topic.
And if "Made In The U.S.A." is much pop, it can not say the extent of "Animal" (Feat. Fefe Dobson) which has arcade synths, but it is totally Yelawolf club stirrer. In which after time I predict, that Travis Barker will sit behind the drums, namely for performance of this piece, to thrust it together, as they did with previous things of Yelawolf ("Trunk Muzik"; "Good To Go"; " Pop The Trunk ", to mention a few). Here Yelawolf do what he should to do - cosmic rapping, as fly out shuttle loaded with fuel for years forward. Quick as bomb.
"The Hardest Love Song In The World" is a funky, leisurely history, contrary to the title, in it embedded history - retrospection which in mention Black Sabbath, there is rock, samples, insights, Barry White, but not slow, Barry White from Alabama. Anthem of Alabama, for the city, of life of the boy Michael Atha there, for struggle, love and chasing of the goals, and total narrator Yelawolf will hit you in the heart like me.
From the first beat of "Write Your Name" (Feat. Mona Moua), until I hear it I cry, really, so painfully beautiful is. It is like a call of that, that there into you somewhere deep there, you carry into yourself some wishes that you want to accomplish one sunny day for the joy of the people who loves you. To be very proud of you. And somewhere there near to you quietly stay your birthplace - beginning, urge. "You're richest than you think in that old small town. Cause people like you make the world go round. Alabama!" - Yelawolf witness all his love to Alabama and the people that happen things there, making it clear, that any ordinary human is important and significant. "Probably never see his name in the headlines. But if I had a plane I'd put it in the sky. Alabama!".
With these compositions and to the end, the album reveals the force in arrangements, in rhymes, in stories and the weak songs at all absent, and are left for other artists. Listen to the next "Everything I Love The Most" with funky country guitar, mellow beats, and real insights such as - "Why is everything I love the most. So wrong for me?" in all contexts. But Yelawolf sounds as though as he will find a way out of any difficulty, and to find a fun part. And that charged me.
Thirteenth "Radio" is aimed at countless teenagers all over the world - crazy about social networking, YouTube, and for obsessed with wanting to be famous at any cost. Listen to this - "It's hard to handle so I change the channel on the radio. Cause Internet killed the radio star. Radio and YouTube killed the video star" - this talk about widespread everywhere globalization and accessibility, however. With sadness at old times when there was only radio. When radio was the main source, along with television, to hear your favorite artist. Now you have access to much information. And as Yelawolf singing here (yes, here he sing) - "Everybody seems to lost their mind" or "Sometimes the truth is dark, but the darkness sparks the truest art", in which I can not to disagree, that it is, this is the truth. There are also not a few reminiscences of how stressful and influencing to people is the artist's life in the spotlight and sparkling flashes of cameras, especially for adolescents who take everything for stars and roses. Yelawolf describes the industry (or machine, showbusiness) in words close to the ordinary person.
The penultimate "Slumerican Shitizen" (Feat. Killer Mike) is hillbilly hip-hop with delta blues guitar and comes to remind us, that he is can be painfully sincere and firm in his utterance, and make you to listen its rock thisness. Happen something like a slogan for those outcasts, white trash, spurned, rejected in small borough, but after all it is pumped up rock of type of "Cowboy" of Kid Rock, but with a more dark sound.
The last composition on the album "The Last Song" broken into pieces all pretensions of modern pop "stars" to sound touching. Exactly like here should be done. This is a composition that reminds me a lot about "Shook Ones Part II" performed by Everlast and Mobb Deep on "Loud Rocks" (Compilation) - it has her grief, has her thrust in the vocals. Composition that unfolds in you.
If you need something that even make you cry, it is the final composition. Intent, the desire to simple perfection of the spirit. Story of a lonely childhood, brittle, which over time grows into something stronger and greater. And you feel fairy, lively and gives your love of people who love and cherish. All this is hidden right there in "The Last Song".
Yelawolf is already Shady Records - where things are happening at a high level and Eminem is the unifying figure. And Yela seems more than happy and enthusiastic to give everything of himself and to make a strong, coming from the heart hip-hop.
This is an album which that Yelawolf perfectly displays its completely lyrical and melodic part. And from this his music has grown a lot. Immersing yourself in each composition, you'll feel the emotion that touches and feel feelings that are truly yours to start up the album more and more, feeling the music itself. Yelawolf sound right here and now. And I like this alot.
