Nov 17, 2016 @YelaSXN http://www.forbes.com/sites/steveba...stardom-into-the-business-world/#13a8a2def25f Since debuting on the scene in 2005 with Creek Water, rapper Michael Wayne Atha, known to fans as Yelawolf, has followed his own path of releasing music, going one album and four mix tapes from 2005 to 2010. His unique and prolific release style attracted the attention of first Interscope and then Eminem, who signed Yelawolf to his Shady Records imprint. As Yelawolf gets set for his next album, due in early 2017, the rapper tells me he is also getting ready to make a big splash in other mediums, like film and retail. While on tour, he spoke with me about his new retail space in Nashville, how he’ll balance being an entrepreneur and musician in 2017, why he likes to release so much material leading up to an album and how he connects to fans. Steve Baltin: How much new material have you been showcasing on the tour? Yelawolf: We’re releasing so much music before the album drops that I’m performing records as they drop. “Shadows” drops today, so I’m adding that to the set. I think by the end of the tour there’ll be something like seven songs in rotation because there will be seven videos out before the album drops. Baltin: Every artist has their own way of releasing stuff now because there are so many ways to do it. For you, is it exciting to keep bringing new material into the set? Yelawolf: Yeah, because of the pace of everything in the world now, music and the way people digest everything, I like to look at it as like leapfrog, just setting up multiple leapfrog situations, where I’ve got one thing bubbling, another thing right behind it coming and about to jump over it. That’s kind of the way I perceive things, right as I have myself settled in a piece of artwork, I’m bubbling on something right behind it. Baltin: I really love the new track, it has that old-school outlaw Johnny Cash vibe. Yelawolf: Outkast has always been my go to for the best blend of sounds, so Dungeon Family and all those guys really influenced me as far as a producer. This particular project I produced front to back. I produced it, all the programming and everything. So this is the first project I produced front to back that has a release on it, a label release. It was rad, man. It was a fun project to make. Baltin: Since you produced it all, sonically were there things that emerged that surprised you? Yelawolf: Yeah, becoming a standalone producer was a process using multiple producers throughout my career to learn from. It’s always derived from something directly, it could always be pinpointed to something directly. My MPC 2000 is a specific inspiration from Dr. Dre, I saw them wired up at the studio, I saw a photo of his studio one day a long time ago and I set out to get a MPC 2000 drum machine. So it was that, Dungeon Family, J Dilla, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Black Star, Hieroglyphics, Digable Planets, all these masterful hip-hop projects production wise. Baltin: How do you? Yelawolf: Music was the door, [and now] Slumerican is where I get to be an octopus of sorts, with all of my ideas, making furniture, leather bags, jewelry. I have a shop opening the first of the year in Nashville, Tennessee, barber shop/tattoo shop/we’re making custom furniture, bags. The bigger answer to the bigger question, if you’re saying, “How do you bring people into your world?” For me, it’s been finding multiple ways to bring something tangible to them that I have touched with my art or my story I guess, whether that be a leather bag or a shirt or a ring or a song or a movie, it’s just something I’m sharing with people. Baltin: Tell me more about the shop. Yelawolf: Five years ago when I moved to Nashville, I set out to build a tattoo, barber, retail space. Finally through multiple people I met Mike Wolfe, who is a reality TV star on a show called American Pickers. It’s a really successful show and we became good friends and we toyed around with doing a show for a while. He had this building for lease next to his. So there it was, the building I’d been looking for for five years in Nashville. The barber shop is phenomenal, the tattoo shop is phenomenal, the retail space is phenomenal, and then upstairs eventually will be a gentlemen’s club, speak easy, like Slumerican meets Playboy. That’s kind of how I want the top laid out eventually, it’s an amazing space. Baltin: How do you balance the two in 2017? Yelawolf: I took 2017 off the road to focus on running my business. 2017 is about chilling out, I just became also a resident producer at the House Of Blues, so I have my own space there, it’s myself and T-Bone Burnett has a space right behind me. So I have these two businesses that are flourishing in Nashville, so I just parted from touring in 2017 to take care of those. I’ll just focus on that and keep making music, keep making art, see what happens. Baltin: Knowing you’re not playing in 2017 is it making this tour more exciting? Yelawolf: Yeah, every time I’m walking into a place or walking into a city I’m thinking that very thing, like, “Man, I’m not gonna be back here for a while.” I’m soaking it up. But it’s all for a reset, it’s not like I’m not coming back, it’s just a reset, that’s all. Baltin: What artists do you admire for the way they’ve transitioned into business? Yelawolf: Travis Barker is my god when it comes to mentor or actually see a person as a sensei. There’s no other person, to me, who has laid a foundation more clear than him. But there are certain things Trav didn’t take to the next level that I would like to take to the next level that [Justin] Timberlake did, like I’m definitely trying to go to Hollywood. We’ll see next year, I got my first role next year in this movie called Peter Butter Falcon, it’s an independent film T-Bone Burnett and I are scoring together. Baltin: Who would be your dream people to produce now? Yelawolf: I picture myself old, silver hair doing something really rad for someone really young. If I could step into a booth and produce a project on someone right now that already has an amazing career it would be Eminem, Anthony Kiedis and Hank III, also Kendrick Lamar, please. Kendrick and Future cause I’m a Future fanatic.
