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
Mixing raw biography with folk mythmaking, the twang-infested Trial By Fire finds Yelawolf reminiscing on his hardscrabble Alabama roots. The rapper plays both the roadhouse bluesman spitting rhymes of a doomed childhood over scorching guitar (“Trial By Fire”) and the country troubadour chronicling family struggles and strife over a sadly plucked acoustic (“Keeps Me Alive”). Wynonna Judd adds her deep, gospel-inflected voice to the latter, and the album also boasts a cameo from Kid Rock, whose rebellious howl punches through the Southern-fried rap-rocker “Get Mine”.