Bruiser Wolf on the Lyrics That Changed His Life

Words Matter is an interview series where songwriters whose work means a lot to us talk about the lyrics that mean a lot to them—the ones that helped shape their style, made them jealous, or left them awestruck.

The first thing you’re likely to notice about Bruiser Wolf is his voice, a helium-tinged yawp that sounds as fit for Looney Tunes as it does a Detroit street rapper. Wolf’s vocal tone draws you in close, which makes it all the more fun to pick apart his wordplay-heavy bars. On his 2021 breakout, Dope Game Stupid, he smash-cut jokes and metaphors with harrowing bits of autobiography. Sometimes, like on the closer “Momma Was A Dope Fiend,” the former college football prospect-turned-drug dealer would jettison the jokes entirely, instead looking back on the streets and his relationship with his late mother. She was plagued by an addiction to the very drugs he was selling at the time.

Wolf’s third album Potluck, released this past May, continues to refine that dance between joke and trauma, how lessons learned in the mud follow you long after you’ve gotten clean. He’ll occasionally turn back the clock to make this point, like he does on the first verse of the F1lthy-produced “Offer I Couldn’t Refuse.” “How did I get here? I had a scholarship / I played ball, now it’s a 8-ball in my pocket,” he says, mildly bemused by the product he has to move before shrugging and moving on: “Fuck it, drop it, let’s switch the subject / Take cocaine and make derivatives like a suffix.” Other times, he’ll toast to his good fortune, blowing weed clouds “that look like ‘Pow!’ in a comic” on “Fancy.” He’s a bottomless well of stories, references, and old-fashioned Detroit bravado. “I can make a man OD, ask Meth,” he says on “Whippin,” deconstructing the Wu-Tang member’s name with an audible grin. 

Bruiser Wolf is even more fun off the mic. Our call trailed off into tangents, examining corners of his childhood, favorite movies, and parenting choices. Wolf is sincere, but his stories are fast and swift, like he’s a standup comic doing crowd work. About a third of our conversation consisted of him reciting large chunks of the songs he chose. Rap is as natural as breathing to him, and he uses it to impart jokes, wisdom, and mistakes like your favorite uncle (“the rich one,” as he calls himself on “Beat The Charge”). Here are some of the artists, lyrics, and songs that have inspired one of the most singular voices in Detroit hip-hop.