Big Yavo

“Where I’m at, it’s all me,” says Birmingham, Alabama’s Big Yavo. After just 2 years of rapping, the artist is the epitome of self-made. Video singles including “No Pen,” “Shawn Kemp,” and 2021’s “Freestyle” have presented a charismatic artist with a refusal to compromise or chase attention through co-signs. “In my part of town, nobody made it before,” says the product of the city’s west side. “I feel like I haven’t made it either, but no one has made it as far as I have,” he admits. After three full-length projects on Cinematic Music Group during 2020 alone, Big Yavo is making it. Upcoming album promises to be a loud statement with some new sounds. “Lately, I have been trying to switch my flow up," says the artist. “There’s a lot of people that got my old Yavo sound down pat. I’m going different ways with it the further I go.” Throughout his life, Big Yavo has been around the action. In one of the most dangerous cities in the US, the rapper stresses, “You have to know how to move to survive.” He grew up around people immersed in the streets. “I can talk about it because I’ve seen it; Everything that I rap about I’ve seen or did,” he says. As Alabama recently grabbed the rap spotlight, Yavo felt that something was missing. “Everybody was on their same lil’ wave.” Since 2019, Yavo had been sporadically making songs in the studio and posting them to YouTube. Hometown love has been an essential element for an authentic artist representing the city’s under-covered neighborhoods.