S. Samuel
Shady Records rapper Yelawolf recently dished out some advice for aspriring artists and what precautions they should take before signing on any record label's dotted lines.
Yela said artists should realize what they want from a major label and not rely on the record company to make their career.
“My advice to other artists is um you don’t really f*cking need a label anymore, you don’t need a major label, you don’t need none of that sh*t,” he explained. “If they’re not absolutely working as a promotional company, as an engine to promote your music every single f*cking day — when you sign a contract, you better be d*mn sure they have obligations to work your sh*t. A lot of nonsense comes with it. I wish I could say that I’m happy with my situation but I’m not. I’m just putting it out there, I mean f*ck, that’s my job. It’s my life, it’s my job. I don’t have anything personally against Interscope or anyone up there, but my situation is not what it’s supposed to be. That’s for sure. When you join a label, you really shouldn’t be joining them to create a career. You should only be joining a label to better your situation. That way, whether they do something or not, you’re still in the same boat. You’re not really affected by them not working, you’re only helped if they do work. And that’s the kind of situation I’m in.” (Skee TV)
Recently, Yela revealed his complications with Interscope Records and the label’s lack of support.
“Radioactive, the last project I put out, was deliberately given to Interscope, and it was on a f*cking silver platter, given to them to work. Radio records,” Yela said in an interview. “Purposefully, it was my attempt. These motherf*ckers have given me one single in eleven months. I don’t really understand where the importance is — and that’s just me being real. … Shady’s great, I love Shady Records. I just think there’s some sh*t going on upstairs. I don’t know what the f*ck’s going on. Back to ‘Trunk Music.'” (“All Out Show”)
Coincidentally, Bad Boy rapper Machine Gun Kelly recently dished out initial problems he had with the corporate side of Interscope.
“First off, I hated the song when I first did it, because it was brought to me by corporate America,” Kelly said in an interview “They didn’t even come to me with the song. It was like a contest between the Interscope rappers like Yelawolf, Kendrick Lamar and myself — it took weeks to get me to do the song, then three days later, it was on the Verizon commercial. … I was like, ‘Oh my God. This is crazy. This is nuts. This is cool.’ [But] I told my management, ‘Don’t you dare let them make this into a song.’ A month passes by, all of a sudden, I open up an email. They’re like, ‘Yeah. Jimmy [Iovine] wants you to records a second verse to this.’ And it had the hook on it.’ I don’t operate like that. I hate cookie cutter songs. … You weren’t there making the song with each other in the studio. It was presented to you. I write all my hooks. When I got this hook, I was offended. ‘You guys think I’m a cookie cutter artist?’ I don’t work like that.” (WiLD 94.1)
Yela recently came off damaging his spleen a few months ago and hospitalization.
“I have [spoken] to him, I spoke to him, I called him and checked on him. I think he stage-dove or something like that,” Royce da 5’9″ told MTV News of Yela’s status when we caught up with the MC in Austin, Texas. “I don’t know if people know this because Yelawolf is such a mild-mannered, laid-back kinda guy, but he gets real rowdy onstage and he doesn’t mind putting his physical health in danger as well as the fans’, which makes for a greater show. … He’s well, he’s doing well — He just had to cancel a couple of shows just so he could get right.” (MTV)
Check out Yelawolf’s interview below:
