Rapper and musical pioneer Yung Gravy has never fit into one genre. Just as his name suggests, he has covered a little bit of everything from pop to hip hop to his self-defined surf rock rap.
On his seventh album “Serving Country,” he invites listeners back onto the Gravy Train with a trip down South. Gravy has cooked up 14 tracks, including six collaborations. However, a country album wasn’t the original destination.
“I was getting sick of doing all the same stuff,” Gravy explained in a press conference with ECHO and 1824. “I would do an album – try new things and get better every time and then I would do an album with bbno$, which would be a nice break, but I was like I need to do something completely new.”
That “completely new” vision started to bubble up when Gravy was introduced to some artists in the country music scene. “They were so cool and welcoming that I thought about doing a little EP or something or just a song with them, and then Diamond Pistols and I got to working on it and we just loved it and had such a blast that we did a whole album,” Gravy said.
This was the first time in Gravy’s career that he worked exclusively with one producer. For example, with “Baby Gravy III,” the album was split into thirds between three producers.
Gravy explained, “This is probably the most I’ve ever worked with one producer on anything and it was Diamond Pistols – Christian. In the past, for me, he’s produced “Miami Ice,” “C’est La Vie.” [He’s] really talented. Pretty much everything we did together.”
Gravy also credited Nick Seeley, “who I always work with, who has players who can play every instrument and he brought in a band and coordinated a bunch of stuff so they all added as well.”
Another thing Gravy changed up on this record was his writing process. “My roommate, Stu – I usually don’t work with anyone in the room while I’m writing – he helped me write some melodies. He does a lot more singing – I’m not perfect at that, so he was a big part of the album.”
Among the track listings is “I Went To Jail In Georgia,” the long awaited story behind “gravy off probation,” a lyric from “1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot.”
“That was something that people would ask me about all the time like why did you say “gravy off probation.” Why have you been to jail more than one time in Georgia? I was like, you know what, I’m going to answer the question and I made a song about it,” Gravy said of his favorite track on the album, which he “basically produced.”
“I can not myself produce a song with my hands and nobody else but I was pointing and saying to the producer exactly how to do it. That beat is the closest I’ve been to producing a song,” Gravy clarified.
For the accompanying yet-to-be-released video, Gravy enlisted the help of his ten accomplices to tell the story.
Other track highlights include six collaborations with some of the biggest names in country and rap including Zac Brown, Dylan Marlow, Brantley Gilbert, Juicy J, and Shania Twain.
Twain’s twang can be heard on “White Claw,” an homage to the spiked sparkling water.
On working with Twain, Gravy said, “It was cool. We actually worked a lot. We just kind of bonded. A lot of it was because of her husband because he was swiss and my dad was swiss…Her husband became a dad figure in a not weird way.”
A record is not a true Yung Gravy record without at least one sample. “In the early ass days I was picking beats… samples that I liked. Like literally just picking old school songs and sampling those. But those are hard to clear. Now I will usually create something original but if I do sample something it’s got to be a song that I really love because it’s a lot of effort. So the only sample on this album is “You’re Still the One” by Shania Twain. I did a flip on that with her master and all of her vocals. So it’s kind of a collab. That ones good,” Gravy shared of his song “My Day 1’s.”
Even with “Serving Country” dropping on all platforms less than a month ago, the Gravy Train has no plans of slowing down anytime soon. Gravy is already back in the studio cooking up new music. “There will definitely be a deluxe and we will probably make more music for that. But at the same time I am going to be making just classic gravy stuff. Straight up just bangers. I want to do an album with Jason Rich and doing my most classic sound,” he revealed.
For fans of Gravy’s foray into BookTok, Gravy acknowledges, “I need to do more of those. I always think about that. I do have the next in the series. I’ve been lacking,” However, in true Gravy fashion there is always something simmering, “[the series] actually led to some deals with companies. I think it’s starting with a bedtime story and an acting role.”
In the meantime, Gravy will be serving up country, as well as music from his Soundcloud days on his upcoming headlining “Grits and Gravy” tour this fall, joined by Stu on backing vocals and Diamond Pistols on guitar.
For tickets, visit https://yunggravy.com/