Yelawolf (aka Michael Wayne Atha) is a Southern hip-hop artist from Alabama. Heavily inspired by Outkast--and Andre 3000 in particular---he took to rapping in the early 2000s, appearing on the reality talent program The Road to Stardom with Missy Elliott in 2005. After enjoy some middling success soon after, Yelawolf was quickly signed and then dropped from Columbia Records' roster. In 2010 however, he began popping up as a guest rapper on tracks from the likes of Big Boi, Juelz Santana and Paul Wall, finding some hard-earned attention for his own work in the process. Combining traces of Eminem's eccentric flow with the production and beats found in modern Southern rap, Yelawolf seems primed to become a household name in the hip-hop world sooner than later.
