Just about my favorite new guy has a pretty detailed interview over at Complex Magazine. In order for Yelawolf to be the big star I think he can be, we gotta learn a little about him first. You know how this goes. It's pretty ill.

Complex: You were homeless while you were out there?

YelaWolf: Yeah, some nights. And then I stood up and decided, “Alright, I’m bouncin’.” I called my mom like, “Buy me a plane ticket home for Christmas.” When I got to Alabama, wasn’t nobody there, so I hit my homie up and he was like, “Yo, let’s go get on a fishing boat in Alaska and make some money.” [Laughs.] [I did that] in ’01 for one season.

Complex: I heard it’s dangerous, but you get paid well, right?

YelaWolf: Well, most people do, but I didn’t get paid shit. We got fucked. We were just green, out there on a fucking boat with a shitty captain, I worked like 20 hour days for 7 days a week, and took home like $1500 after a month.

Complex: During that time period, did you see people die out there?

YelaWolf: I saw some broken arms, and people almost dying of seasickness, but I ain’t see nobody die. Thank God nobody lost their life. It is fucking dangerous, though. There were some boats that went down during our season.

Complex: What did you do once you got back?

YelaWolf: I was kind of hustling. Doing the 9 to 5 thing, I sucked at hustling. [Laughs.]

Complex: You were selling drugs?

YelaWolf: Yeah, I tried that shit a few times, but I just smoked it all up. I was just fucking up stacks. I don’t mean literally, but I mean, being too damn friendly, giving people too much weight for too cheap, so I never really made money at it.

Complex: What kind of 9-to-5’s were you doing?

YelaWolf: You fucking name it. I mean, you’d think that if I got on a boat in Alaska, I’d do anything. I never [waited tables] though. One thing I never liked doing was being in front of people, because I wanted to definitely do this music shit. I ain’t about to wait no fucking tables. [Laughs.] You ain’t about to be able to see me. That’s why the boat made sense for me. Or I’d go work construction out of town, or big ditches, or just do random shit where I could be with people who didn’t know me.


Great interview, read it in full here

*Shout out to my homegirl @Kw0www for the heads up.