YG Covers FADER.
Since the release of his My Krazy Life in 2014, YG has experienced the ups and downs that come with success. The Compton rapper graces the cover of FADER’s new issue, where writer Matthew Trammell heads to the City of Angeles, spending time with the 25-year-old rapper. Along with commentary from Def Jam CEO Steve Bartels and Epic Records VP of A&R Sickamore, new details are also revealed about YG’s sophomore effort, Still Krazy.
Despite resolving their previous rift, YG and DJ Mustard have not worked as much. Terrace Martin, London On Da Track, Hit-Boy, and Metro Boomin have contributed to the project, with 50 Cent and Nipsey Hussle being named as guest features to this point.
In the new issue which hits newsstands on December 15, YG also opens up on getting shotback in June, his thoughts on the N.W.A biopic Straight Outta Compton, coming up with DJ Mustard, and more.
Check out an excerpt from the cover story and some photos below.
Continue after the jump…..
Despite YG and Mustard’s clear potency as a duo, the personnel shift has offered the rapper room to expand. The handful of tracks he’s completed for Still Krazy between Atlanta and Los Angeles over the past year are even more ambitious than the breakouts on his debut. My Krazy Life stamped YG and Mustard’s gangsta party sound on the mainstream—with followers from Tyga and 2 Chainz to Iggy Azalea and Jidenna. But Still Krazy has grown out of sessions with a slew of of-the-moment hitmakers from around the country, including Terrace Martin, London On Da Track, Hit-Boy, and Metro Boomin. The results are inspired. Dripping with classic G-funk synths, the records expand YG’s party-driven sound to broader thematic edges that are at once more personal, infectious and eccentric. He’s rapping more intricately, and tackling bigger subjects relevant to his personal life.
“This record is a little darker,” says Sickamore. “It’s more paranoid. It’s a reflection of where he’s at now.”
There are songs about YG’s infant daughter, Harmony, and the new sense of purpose she’s given him. There’s a screed on the police brutality that has made recent headlines—but instead of a plea or a spiritual, it’s a war cry, calling for his comrades to stay armed in light of cops that get away with murder. One coy takedown of freeloaders revives an old Compton colloquialism he picked up from family, “Gimme got shot”—a quick retort for when someone asks for something rudely. There are anthems about staying bool, balm, and bollected, and a 50 Cent verse that’s as good as 50’s sounded in a decade, where he raps with youthful hunger alongside YG and Nipsey Hussle about wanting a Benz he’s surely already owned twice. And, most revealing, there’s a chilling song about the second day in YG’s life that almost derailed everything he’s worked for. It opens with a sample of a news report about a shooting that had aired just weeks before. Each time he queues up the album for rooms full of producers, engineers, label reps, or close friends and stragglers during the days I’m with him in L.A., it’s the song he always plays first.
Ready the full cover story over at FADER
