The Singles Jukebox

Only Michael Wayne Atha’s third appearance in these hallowed pages!

[Video][Website]
[5.70]

Jonathan Bradley: Yela’s narrative here runs parallel to his artistic strengths. He presents as a wide-eyed rube who, whether macking with his backwoods charm or winding a woolly flow around complex rhythmic nooks and crannies, is not half as dull-witted as might be supposed. “Nobody got that kind of money in the boondocks,” he marvels to his blue-blooded object of affection, with just enough diffidence to suggest he’s harmless, and more than enough self-awareness to prove he’s not.
[8]

Michaela Drapes: My overall thoughts on Yelawolf aren’t really appropriate for a family-friendly forum like The Singles Jukebox … *ahem* That being said, I can’t help but hear this as a bookend to Kreayshawn’s “Rich Whores”. In case you were wondering, these are the chicks she’s railing against — or a subset of them anyway. I mean seriously, do you blame him for jacking the car? Not really.
[8]

Jonathan Bogart: Is this his big pop crossover move? If so, it’s still satisfyingly grungy, dirt-under-the-collar and weird. Yelawolf could teach quite a few country stars a thing or two about representing the sticks without sounding like a doofus doing it.
[7]

Michelle Myers: Everything we’ve come to expect from a good Yela track: double-time rhyming, percussive consonants, thick ‘Bama drawl, and an imposing trap beat. This would seem unimpressive if the concept for the song weren’t so unique. Props to Yelawolf for turning the gold digger trope on its head.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Yelawolf’s high, cutting nasality is at its best, as it should be over a synth-orchestra track this generic.
[6]

Brad Shoup: Southern rappers always come off better when they rep city over region. Yela whiffs mightily on this track, a mean-spirited, tone-deaf evisceration of SoCal women he surely wrote with the E! Channel on mute. Daddy issues, pink, and Prada: that’s all he bothers to work with. As for his neck of the country, it’s reducible to Waffle House and the mall. Drama’s track plinks and oozes like rap charts four years ago.
[1]

Jer Fairall: Reactions to him tend to be so strongly positive that I feel I’m missing something key, but I suspect that his annoyingly clownish vocals will continue to stand in the way of my discovering whatever that is, and a track spent fetishizing his girl’s father’s car helps none at all.
[3]

Katherine St Asaph: If Yelawolf expects to win me over, he’s gonna have to do a lot more than cackle about cars over the driver’s ed version of a track. While he’s at it, ditch the mid-video ditz skit.
[3]

Ian Mathers: I’ll admit, the first time I played this I couldn’t help but find it a bit silly, but (as the video makes clear), Yelawolf knows exactly what he’s doing. The contempt here reminds me of nothing so much as Brad Pitt teaching actors (ha) to play poker at the beginning of Ocean’s Eleven; the privileged think that the sneer is part of the image, but it goes bone deep. No wonder that chorus sounds a little more sinister every time it plays.
[7]

Jake Cleland: The line “You must have white bread, let’s make a sandwich” reminds me of the time I stopped a party, held up a slice of white bread I’d taken out of the kitchen, and said “I’d like to make a toast.” Yela and I would be best friends.
[6]