Ason Yugen Pays Homage to Hip-Hop's Roots on The Wolf & The Social Club

Just months before he was scheduled to graduate from Tuskegee University with a degree in aerospace engineering, hip-hop artist Ason Yugen (born Victor Xavier George) realized that rocket science wasn't his calling.

"I left my senior year, right before I graduated. I was like, 'No, something's not right. I have to use my voice for something,'" recalls the Indianapolis native.

Music had always been an integral part of Yugen's life, whether he was playing the cello, deejaying or obsessively studying music history, particularly the cultural trajectory of hip-hop. Although he took a job in the tech industry to support himself, his passion for music never wavered. Now based in Denver, Yugen recently released his debut album, an eighteen-track epic titled The Wolf & The Social Club.

"Before this, I was just a DJ, and that's really what got me started with music," he says. "My older brother was a DJ when vinyl was going out and CDJs were coming in, but he still had a record box and was throwing high school parties and stuff. I was like, 'I want to do that.'" He remembers he would take a Logitech speaker to high school, "and in between orchestra classes, I would be like, 'Let's go have a mini party!' I was always trying to move the crowd."

After leaving college, Yugen linked up with one of his former classmates in Seattle, where they started working together to help record and produce tracks for other artists. He started rapping on a whim around 2015, after the musicians in his circle kept nudging him. "Somebody was like, 'You wanna hop on this track?' And I was like, 'Bro, I've never rapped before,'" he says. "I got that first verse, and I was hooked. Deejaying helped me understand what people wanted, and stepping out from behind the booth just helped me blossom."

A producer that he and his friend were collaborating with in Seattle encouraged Yugen to move to Denver, and "that's how I wound up here," he says, "with basically a dollar and a dream —  a duffel bag full of clothes, a notebook and some PF Flyers."

He started at square one, working his way through the ranks of Denver's underground hip-hop scene and honing his skills at open-mic events. His name, which he uses on and off stage, comes from the lore of one of his favorite musical forefathers, Wu-Tang Clan's ODB, who originally went by Ason Unique. "I was like, 'That would be really cool to carry that first part on, like a dynasty," he says. "Yugen" is a Japanese aesthetic he discovered while studying the language. "How I define it is the unseen place where you pull your creativity and words from," he explains, "otherwise known as the ether."

Yugen has now been in Denver for "the better part of six years," but also spent time traveling abroad, working as a club DJ in Thailand, Egypt and Tanzania. After losing his day job six months ago, he decided to focus on music full-time, resulting in The Wolf & The Social Club.
On the album, listeners can hear how Yugen's sound carries traces of all the music he's absorbed in his lifetime. "My parents were super strict about music to begin with, but my mom would play Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. That's where the soul comes from," he explains. "Nas, for sure. My dad had the Illmatic album, but he never let us listen to it, so I didn't listen to it until I was older, and I was like, 'Man, how can you keep this from me?'"

When it comes to more current artists who inspire Yugen, another New York rapper immediately comes to mind: "Joey Bada$$. Joey really made me fall in love with hip-hop — his aggression, yet elevated lyrics. It just bops."

The influence of these New York hip-hop icons is clear throughout The Wolf & The Social Club, in which Yugen successfully bridges the gap between old-school and new-school styles. Despite the fact that he has never even been to New York, he nails the distinct East Coast sound, thanks to his understanding of hip-hop's roots. "I've studied so much hip-hop history, and that's what excites me. I love to pay homage to the origins, and also be a person who is a historian and wants to improve and build on what was already laid into the foundation of hip-hop," he explains.

Released under his personal brand Open Refuge, The Wolf & The Social Club is a concept album that explores the idea of social media as an alternate universe.

"It started with the song 'Apex Integra,' explains Yugen. "Somebody had mentioned something to me about a cosmic taxi ride, and that's what made me write that song. Like in Who Framed Roger Rabbit? when they first go to the toon world and they're riding in the taxi with all the cartoons, and he's a real person. I was like, 'What abstract thing can I paint to take someone out of their day-to-day, but still be relatable?' Then that song spawned the whole album."

The work was also inspired by the way technology has completely transformed the world within Yugen's lifetime, "from no social media, calling people on the phone, knocking on somebody's door to go play outside and things like that," he says. "Then you get invited to Myspace, Facebook, then I'm in college and Instagram drops. It's up from there."
At 31 years old, Yugen belongs to a specific generation of so-called "elder millennials," who came of age during the dawn of social media and cell phones but still remember the days before technology was so prevalent in daily life. "Especially at my age, you're in the middle between people who didn't really have anything and people who were born when there were already DVDs and streaming services," he notes. Each song on The Wolf & The Social Club narrates a step toward the future, starting with "Login" and ending with "Logout" (though the final song on the album is actually a not-to-be-missed bonus track called "Open Refuge").

"The story is in the real world until 'Algorithm,' and then 'Algorithm' is the dive into the portal, and you enter another world," Yugen explains. Looking at the album's sparse cover, which shows only the title and Yugen's name on a plain, dark-blue backdrop, you would not expect it to be about an otherworldly psychedelic journey, and that's precisely why Yugen chose it.

"To pay homage to some of those pieces of literature that I took influence from, I designed the cover like some old book you might pull off the shelf," he says. "I wanted it to look like a piece of literature, and to not be able to be judged by the cover. I really wanted people to use their imagination, and not have any preconceived notions before they listen."

With his insightful lyrics lamenting the 21st-century human condition, Yugen merges the philosophy of conscious rap with the brash flavor of ’90s gangsta rap. He intends to provoke conversations that people tend to shy away from, especially in the realm of hip-hop. "For example, 'Bag Talk' touches on the subject of murder culture and why we popularize murder culture so much in the hip-hop and rap community," he notes. "We know it's destructive. Not to take away from anybody's art, but I feel that as an artist, you have a personal responsibility to either uplift, inform or elevate."

The album also frequently touches on mental health, specifically how social media contributes to a warped sense of self. "You'll be feeling great, and then you spend ten minutes scrolling and you don't feel so good anymore," he says. "Why? Is it the comparison to someone else's life? Is it looking at the glorified highlight reel? Because no one is posting too much organic material; most of the time it's just curated. Is it just to seek that external validation from somebody else? Are you counting the likes and the views? What does that do for you internally, versus human interaction out in the real world? That's why the album strives to get to the 'Logout.'"
Because Yugen's debut encompasses a full narrative arc, he refused to trim the eighteen-track album down, even though his peers in the industry urged him to consider it. "I talked to so many people who were like, 'Why do you want to release an album in this day and age? You can't trim it down to ten? Or eight?'" he recalls. "I was like, 'That sounds like an EP to me.' I really wanted to distinguish this project from an EP."

The expansive album serves as a formal introduction to Yugen's artistry, showcasing the range of vocal textures and flows that he has in his repertoire. Cutting that short would be compromising his vision, he explains: "I wanted it to be a collective work, and I feel like it got to eighteen tracks because I wanted to make sure I got the story out. For eighteen tracks, it plays pretty fast. It's about 54 minutes in length — fifteen tracks of music plus three skits. It could have been more."

Yugen is already hard at work on his sophomore album, which will delve deeper into the concepts and skill sets he explored on The Wolf & The Social Club. "It's new to everybody else, but now it's old to me," he says of his debut. While he's excited to finally be able to share it with audiences, he's even more excited for what's next.

"I love to perform it — performing it is great — but now I want to expand on these flow structures, these bars, get deeper here, get on different beats," he says. "You put that first project out to kick the door in, and now the next project is like, 'I'm here to stay.'"

Yugen plays the Let's Start a Riot artist showcase at 7 p.m. Friday, July 28, and Saturday, July 29, at the Firehouse Theater Company, 7653 East First Place; tickets are $25. The Wolf & The Social Club is available on all streaming platforms.