Yelawolf was previously signed to Eminem's label Shady Records before going independent, but that didn't stop him from releasing a track featuring Machine Gun Kelly. Trunk Muzik III, which was released on Shady, featured an appearance from MGK, who has been beefing with Em for quite some time. In an interview with HipHopDX, Yela has explained how that collaboration came to be, and what his thoughts are on the beef overall.
Prior to the release of "Rowdy," Yela and MGK were at each other's throats before they sorted their issues out. Eventually, the two hung out and Yela showed MGK a track he had in mind for him. "I can't take all the credit, because DJ Paul hit me was like...we kind of had the same thought at the same time. 'He was like, 'Listen, man. Put MGK and Eminem on this record and let's fucking go.' he explained. "And I was like, 'Marshall will never go for that man.' I was like, 'I'll hit him up.' I said, 'You know what? I'm in.'So I laid my verse. Sent it to MGK, got MGK's verse back to me. And I sent that to Marshall. Crickets."
He took that as a pretty clear sign that Em wasn't interested in being on the same song as Kelly. "And some months later, boom, he drops his diss record to MGK," he added, assumedly referring to Em's "Not Alike" from his album Kamikaze. "Kamikaze. Nobody knew it was coming," he added. "I didn’t know he had a record in the bag. I didn’t even know he was working on the album. So when it dropped, I had this song in my pocket. I already had [it]."
At a loss with what to do with the track at this point, he decided to call up Em directly and ask him if he's still good to put out "Rowdy." "He was like ‘man, fuck it, run it, people need to hear that,’" he explained. "Marshall has always been selfless with me, what I do, always. I can say that. He always been a champion for me. If it works for me, he’s behind it. He’s not a hater. That was his deal and he hold it down on his own."
Throughout the whole situation, from "Not Alike" to "Killshot" and "Rap Devil," Yela said he never wanted to take a side. "Obviously I ride with Shady," he said. "If it meant that we had to go to war or something like that and Marshall’s like, ‘I need you for this.' I mean, Marshall is psycho."
Regardless, he was impressed with both sides, and he was eager to highlight MGK's "really impressive" effort. "You'd be hater to say, 'Ah, dude didn't hold it down for himself' cause he did," he says. "I commend him for it because Marshall is no easy task."
The full interview with Yelawolf drops on Saturday, Dec. 14.
