Yelawolf, all arms and long-ass tank-top, slinks onto the stage, says “What the fuck is up?!” to an audience he’s gotta win over and promptly wins them over, song by song, double-time flow after double-time flow. The closest Yela gets to conventionally bigging himself up is getting the crowd to joyfully chant “Fuck you Yelawolf” before and after “F.U”, a clever, self-deprecating way of reminding new listeners who the fuck he is. All that matters it seems, is the show he’s performing, there’s no pimping Trunk Muzik and no mentions of being signed to Interscope. Just raps.
“Trunk Muzik” starts the set, introducing everybody to Yela’s weird combination of deep South, when-you’re-twisted-it’s-really-awesome bass-wobble production and insanely proficient, super-technical rapping. The performance is remarkably similar to what you hear on record, which seals the deal for those already aware of him and off-sets the “who/whatthefuckisthisguy?” feelings anyone not already hip to his masterful Trunk Muzik might have. There’s some confusing mystery about the guy and he uses it to his advantage: Tall, white, tattooed, insanely talented in the art of rapping, a pretty good dancer, what?
And seeing a guy rap really well, this well, never gets old. A machine-gun fire of words–Yelawolf probably rapped more syllables in his 8 song set than all the other performers that night combined–and a blur of limbs and tattoos (John Wayne? A big-ass catfish?) and defiant enthusiasm. He dashes around the stage so quickly and elegantly, it’s almost like he disappeared stage-right and re-emerged stage-left. Everything’s physical with Yelawolf. Lots of moving around. The brief between-songs heaves from rapping alot and rapping fast. The girls Yela brings on-stage to dance with him during “My Box Chevy Pt. 3″. When he climbs into the crowd and all the rest of us can see is his red hat bobbing up and down.
“Pop the Trunk”, Yelawolf’s “hit” in the sense that even people not rapping along to his other songs perk-up, turn on their FlipCams, and rap along to this one, is all urgency. On his mixtape, the song’s a detail-obsessed, story-rap, lots of simmer and slowburn, but live, it’s as big and booming as “Good to Go” or “Mixin’ Up the Medicine”. It doesn’t take the crowd down a few notches, it kidnaps their attention, takes them away, and drop them in the middle of his backwoods Alabama rap tale. Shoulders lunge forward when he says “What the fuck man, I can never get sleep” and there’s an eerie, calm, like the shit described in song is actually playing out in front of the crowd. The thrill of the songs gets magnified, which is the point of a good live performance.
further reading/viewing:
-Yelawolf at Cat’s Cradle by beckles1321
-Yelawolf performing live at Cat’s Cradle from ULTRASOUND
-“Yelawolf’s Redneck Manifesto” by ME
-“How Big Is Your World? Good Rap from January” by ME
-Interview with Yelawolf at the Levi’s FADER Fort
Are You A Serious Comic Book Reader?
How was Wiz Khalifa?
mark p.
8 Apr 10 at 6:01 pm
mark-
ha, I left after Yela’s performance. Actually, I left after Jasmine Solano played “Rollin” after Yela’s performance.
Brandon
8 Apr 10 at 6:16 pm
Haha, I kind of don’t blame you. I really liked Wiz’ mixtape with Curren$y from last year, but 80% of what I’ve heard from him is straight garbage. I’m just assuming he puts on one hell of a live show, since people seem to LOVE this guy..
mark p.
8 Apr 10 at 6:30 pm
mark-
I have a real job and shit, so staying for a show I didn’t care about seemed silly. I got to talk to Yela for a while and ate some wings and shit with him before the show, so I didn’t feel like my ticket wasn’t “my money’s worth”.
Wiz confuses me because I really had no idea anyone cared about him until this tour and it’s like selling out. I’m going to assume he puts on what people think is a “Good show” rather than a good show, but that might be me being a prick. Might?
Like a good show is sorta this intangible thing, sometimes a good show isn’t even a good show until days later when you’re like “fuck…man”. You know?
Brandon
9 Apr 10 at 5:37 am
Yeah man. To be honest though, I have a hard time imagining any rap show being a “good show”, or at least not in the same way that seeing, like, Slayer or the Allman Brothers or Low or your favorite local hardcore or doom metal band could be considered a “good show”.
Basically, my experience with rap shows throughout my life has been as follows:
1. Any rap artist on a major label, no matter how “respectable”, will have either 20 hypemen or his entire crew on stage at all times finishing every other line of every verse, basically turning the shit into an irritating cacophony, and not in the good way. The beats are almost ALWAYS too quiet,and for some reason these venue’s systems are never equipped with adequate subwoofers. The main MC(s) often complains constantly about the “soundman” throughout the set, but for some stupid reason nothing is done about it.
2. With very few exceptions, it is difficult for rappers to re-produce all of the weird little nuances that you love about their style in a live setting. This isn’t entirely their fault, since rap is very much a studio creation anyway, but it’s still annoying. With MCs like E-40 that have anywhere from 30-100 vocal edits in any given verse, it is literally impossible for them to pull it off live. In general, rappers tend to put all of the emphasis on the wrong words at live shows, say the quiet parts loud and the loud parts louder, and there is pretty much no chance that anyone who doesn’t know/love the song they are performing already will leave the show wanting to hear the studio version of it.
Other things that can fucking suck it:
-MCs rapping over their CDs with FULL VOCAL TRACKS INTACT. How fucking lazy is that? Seriously. It just drives the point home that the only purpose in going to these stupid things is to HOLY SHIT DUDE be in the same room with the guy who wrote some songs you like.
-Live bands, except if your music has a lot of live instrumentation to begin with. This hasn’t become a big issue yet, thankfully.
Anyway, judging by the Yela footage I’ve seen, it does seem like he has the ability to rock a crowd, which seems to be lost on a lot of rappers nowadays (or maybe they just don’t care, I mean it’s not like people are going to stop paying money to go to Gucci shows because he just raps over his CDs). If he actually did have the audience in the palm of his hand while performing “Pop The Trunk” like you said, somehow getting the crowd to actually pay attention to the story while getting crunk, that’s fucking dope, but on the other hand it’s what ALL GOOD RAPPERS SHOULD BE ABLE TO DO.
Alright, whiney/angry post over, but seriously, I just wish more MCs would step their game up and actually put some effort into putting on an enjoyable show.
mark p.
9 Apr 10 at 2:54 pm
I mean, entry into these things isn’t cheap, y’know…
mark p.
9 Apr 10 at 2:57 pm
Mark-
I think sound is the biggest issue. The rapping over the vocals thing is just plain fucking inexcusable, but pretty much every genre has some shitty cliches that make it awful. And I really can’t think of anything more boring than a Low or Doom Metal show.
Back to sound: Most venues are run by people not into rap. And so, the sound system isn’t designed for LOTS OF BASS and a dude rapping, and worse, the sound people don’t even have a clue as to how it should or shouldn’t sound. I watched Yelawolf’s soundcheck and you could see Yela, Burn One, Willpower, etc. slowly moving the sound person towards something that worked for them.
Imagine if a guy who’s into like AC/DC was asked to produce a rap record. Or some indie fucker who likes Spoon. These are your soundman types.
I’ve seen a ton of good rap shows though, often in awful conditions. Common free in Baltimore outside in July. Clipse free in Baltimore outside in July the next year. G-Side in a gym.
Other great rap shows: Kanye opening for Ursher in like 04. Mullyman opening for GZA around that same time.
Yela’s performance was really good, in part b/c it’s more thrilling a bunch of days later. Rocking a crowd is indeed what a rapper should be able to do, but put that in perspective in terms of what other performers have to do–especially indie rockers–and it’s quite a task.
Brandon
10 Apr 10 at 3:56 am