Get ready for a major dose of nostalgia. Yelawolf recently dropped some behind-the-scenes details about his first encounter with Slim Shady himself.
In a recent interview with DJ Vlad, Yelawolf talked about his experience signing with Shady Records.
Yelawolf’s first meeting with Em was straight out of Stan’s dream. Yelawolf describes Em walking in and rapping every word to Yelawolf’s own track, “Pop The Trunk”, before even introducing himself! Yela described this unforgettable first impression:
What was Eminem’s first meeting like? He walked around the corner, reciting every word to Pop The Trunk without even saying what’s up — he was just rapping it. It was mind-blowing.
The Slumerican artist shows his deep respect for Eminem’s role in hip-hop. He acknowledges the frustration of feeling unrepresented as a white rapper, but also how Em’s success shattered those barriers. Yelawolf saw Em as an inspiration, not a competitor. His goal was to earn a cosign from the rap god himself, admits Yela:
I was like any other white boy that was chasing this hip-hop dream. It was crushing not to be represented correctly. We always wanted to be representative. Somebody has to get this correct in a major, major way, and he did, and I was just proud. Watching his success meant that I had a chance. Cause he kicked the door down. But you had to be a fucking beast. I wanted to be an ally. I wanted to join that and get the cosign, and I set out to do that. It was surreal. But at the same time, if you would have asked me ten years before, “Are you gonna sign to Shady?” I would have just been like, fuck yeah. It’s that ego thing.
Here’s where things get even wilder. It turns out that Yelawolf had held onto a demo tape of Eminem’s from ten years prior. He brought it to the meeting, a symbol of his long-standing admiration, and handed it back to Marshall.
The interview paints a picture of an instant connection. After a conversation with Em, Yelawolf was so hyped that he wanted to jump straight into making music. He wasted no time — headed to Vegas, collaborated with Mally Mall and WLPWR, and recorded an entire album in just a couple of months.
Yelawolf’s story is just another example of the power of Eminem’s influence and the camaraderie within the Shady Records family. Shady calls the artists who leave the label “alumni” for a reason. Forever students of hip hop, they take this experience further in life with them, paving their own way in the industry.
