First, the places. Yelawolf, mostly underwater, in Gadsden, Alabama, his hometown. Trash Talk, in the crummy backyard of their temporary home in Stratford, East London, future home of the Olympic games. To both of these artists, place has been an important theme in their careers, Alabama especially figuring into the career of catfish rapper Yelawolf, an undeniable force whose quick diction and mudflap haircut are going to worm their way into the hearts of many, many different types of people. As you may know, rap is the new pop (by new, we mean the last 20 years minimum), and that's basically the time folks like Yelawolf have grown up, this self-proclaimed redneck running through his tracks with a predilection for gross glamor, Chevys and Xanax. We didn't fish him up from the bottom of the swamp, he came up for air himself, but he knows where he's from. That's why we went there. As to Trash Talk, they live mostly on the road. The California hardcore band has spent the last five years constantly touring. We caught them during their August stint in the UK, California boys holed up in a crummy apartment, smoking weed and playing drums faster than should be possible for humans. At least we caught that when their singer wasn't kicking us in the face post front-flip and their bass player didn't get his headstock in our eye. Why violence? Now is dark times. But so are all times. Sometimes the fog just carries over and to be a young person in the world has got some ominous future. These young people are channeling that kinetically and positively, and it's kicked down to us and now, with these covers, we're punting it to you, hoping for some kind of ricochet.
