Yelawolf, his guest features and his producers broke down every track off his album, "Radioactive," for Complex, which dropped this past week.
Check out what was said for three of the tracks off the album below, and go here to check out the breakdown of every track.
"Let's Roll" Feat. Kid Rock, produced by The Audibles & Mr. Pyro and co-produced by Eminem:
Yelawolf: “When they played [the beat] in the studio, I said, ‘The only way I’m gonna do this is if we can get Kid Rock on it.’ Within ten minutes of listening to the record—even before the lyrics were recorded—the goal was [to get Kid Rock]. I looked up to Kid Rock forever and was fortunate enough to have him on my project.
“People would always ask me how they could place my music and I always said Kid Rock, Outkast, and Beastie Boys. I put him in the world of my inspirations. Having him on the project was an honor. He’s the O.G.
“There’s nothing new under the sun about my concepts. I have a different spin and perspective, but all of what Kid Rock has done, I’m doing. I just got my own perspective, style, and cadence. My flow is entirely different, but my approach is in the same world. He’s got a Run-DMC flow, where I take more of a Andre 3000 approach.
“I played the record for Marshall and I told him I wanted to get Kid Rock on there. He was like, ‘Oh my God! That would be crazy!’ They made their calls. A month or so later me, Kawan Prather, Paul Rosenberg, and Marshall drove out to Kid Rock’s house and we met with him.
“Marshall introduced me to Bob [Kid Rock] and we hung out for the night. I played him some of my music. I played ‘Pop The Trunk,’ ‘Daddy’s Lambo,’ ‘Billy Crystal Meth’ and let him get familiar with my sound.
“We cracked some Jim Bean, drank some Red Stags, and played some basketball. Then we went to his warehouse and checked out all his whips and collectors cars. We just hung out as homies.
“When we played him the record, he was really into it, like, ‘Of course I’ll do it.’ I didn’t expect him to say that. By the second time the hook was playing, he was singing along. He got right into it like, ‘I’ll do it. Let’s ROLL!’ He hopped right in there.
“Me, Bob, and Marshall sitting at the table [at Kid Rock’s house] was a pretty crazy scene. Paul Rosenberg was like, ‘You know how much white rap is in this room right now?’ [Laughs.]
“We went to The Bronx and shot a video for it. DJ Kool Herc came out. That’s exactly what I wanted to get across—that respect. Having me and Kid Rock in The Bronx, the birthplace of hip-hop, and then Kool Herc come out, the creator of it all, made it a real special record. It’s gonna kill on the radio.”
"Throw It Up" Feat. Gangsta Boo & Eminem, produced by WillPower, co-produced by Eminem:
Yelawolf: “The whole point was to create a juxtaposition with her and I. I wanted the music to be pretty, but I wanted it to be darker on the verses. I wanted her to come crazy hard because the music’s got a beautiful melody. After we recorded it, I knew it was another super-banger.
“I was like, ‘Damn, man. If I could get Marshall on this? Ooh.’ I knew that if I could get a feature from him, this was the one I wanted. I knew that it wasn’t the expected record and I knew you’ve never heard Marshall on a record that’s sweaty-ass, holding the wall, Southern club.
“It was kind of like taking 8 Mile and putting it with Hustle & Flow. If I got that feature from Marshall, I wanted to bring him into my zone, my culture. And he fucking murdered it. It’s one of those records that, to me, as far as hip-hop and culturally on this project, is one of the most important records because of what it says about us as a team at Shady.
Gangsta Boo:
“I throw drinks on dudes. If I’m in the club, I’ve got a nice butt on me, so you may have a guy and there’s ten of them in a group, and one might touch my butt, and I look back and don’t know which one did it, so the drink is going on everybody. I’m sure that’s [happened] recently. I’m sure it was this year, if not this month. [Laughs.]
“It’s not something I’m trying to promote or continue to do, but I am known for doing it. But I’m a sweetheart too. That’s where the whole split-personality thing comes in at. It’s all in good faith. It definitely wasn’t a diss to Nicki Minaj.”
"Slumerican Shitizen" Feat. Killer Mike, produced by WillPower
Yelawolf:
“I got Slumerican Shitizen tattooed on the back of my leg years ago. The word Slumerican became descriptive of my lifestyle. That’s my take on patriotism. That record’s just about being the underdog.
“Killer Mike loves being really blunt. He’s super intelligent. He knows so much about damn near everything. When we became friends, we would always have discussions how, in some sense, we are from the same world financially, just in a different way. It’s the most rock n roll record on the project.”
Killer Mike:
“[The sound of the record] is Ice Cube meets [heavy metal band] Anthrax. This is Lynard Skynard and the Geto Boys. Lyrically, we are going! There’s no overdoing it or comparisons. This shit is N.W.A.
WillPower:
“We reproduced that record for the album. We originally did that record in 2007 and it was myself, Yelawolf, and Brian Parks. Basically, Wolf walked up to the studio one night and he had just gotten these tattoos on the back of his legs and one said ‘Slumaerican’ and the other said ‘Shitizen.’
“Killer Mike put a banger verse on that shit. At the time, Mike was being managed by Brother Bear who is Yelawolf's manager. Anytime Yelawolf calls on Killer Mike he's always there and vice versa. So Killer Mike was down.