Yola is in her joyful-rage era.
The U.K.-born, New York-based former Nashvillian says so during a late-March afternoon chat on Zoom amid preparations to hit the road on her Sovereign Soul Tour, which stops at The Basement East on Thursday. Yola launched the tour partially in support of her latest project, the My Way EP. Released in January, it’s her first release since the six-time Grammy nominee’s critically acclaimed second album Stand for Myself dropped in 2021.
My Way represents the latest incarnation of Yola’s expansive sound, drawing upon her love for funk, soul, R&B and pop to dynamic and often surprising results. Thematically, the five-pack of new tunes grapples primarily with agency, whether in romantic situations — many of these songs reference a period of Yola’s life when she was dating regularly — or in the act of expression itself. The result is her boldest, most self-realized work yet, as she advocates for her lived experiences through music that dares you not to dance along with her.
While each Yola project sounds different from its predecessor, that defiant spirit connects them to one another, something she says her fans often understand better than the music industry has. Yola shares that, while she was readying My Way, some industry folks around her were skeptical that fans would embrace this different sound. It draws more from influences that were a big part of her early work with dance producers — like Off the Wall-era Michael Jackson and ’80s Tina Turner — and less from the old-school blues, folk and soul that inform her two previous Dan Auerbach-produced LPs, Stand for Myself and 2019’s Walk Through Fire.
“My fans were like, ‘Girl, we knew this was coming for years,’” Yola says, laughing. “They’re like, ‘We’re not surprised. Now release the baby.’ I’m like, ‘Sorry, I’ve got a little bit of a Broadway thing going on.’ And they’re like, ‘Cute, actually. OK, that must be fun. None of us would turn down a lead on Broadway, so go and take that. But we know what’s coming.’”
That “Broadway thing” was, of course, Yola’s turn as Persephone in the critically acclaimed Broadway production of Hadestown, which she performed for several months last year. Though certainly a bucket-list experience, it didn’t take Yola’s eye off another prize: bringing the sounds that would populate My Way out of her head, into the studio and onto a record.
To help realize that vision, Yola assembled what she describes as “starter teams,” who helped her create “pre-demos” to take to recording sessions. These early collaborators include drummer Howard Artis, artist and multi-instrumentalist Haasan Barclay and Memphis-based production duo The PRVLG. The resulting tracks gave Yola something to take to Sean Douglas and Zach Skelton, who co-produced My Way with her.
“They would help me get the beginning of these gazillion voice notes, or these things I can hear, into this kind of primordial shape where I can go, ‘Here’s my idea,’” she says. “That’s what I like to try and populate my hard drive with — like, an inexhaustible number of pre-demos.”
She cites the collaborative nature of making My Way as integral to realizing its full potential. This most recent experience stood in stark contrast to some past studio sessions, during which she had little control over how a finished song sounded.
“I call that ‘rapacious collaboration,’ for the people that don’t understand what consent is,” she says. “When I talk about what is ‘my way,’ my way is true collaboration. It’s about really being truly open, and finding other people who are really, truly open.”
My Way is Yola’s first release with S-Curve Records, and being with a new label also gave her the freedom to make the record she wanted to make. She jokes that while making this EP, she didn’t have to worry about the “sausage-making situation” of past projects, laughing as she says, “I didn’t even have to be a sausage this time. I could be a beef Wellington.”
In turn, more creative freedom gave Yola the opportunity to dig into some difficult subjects, like she does in closing track “Ready.” It has roots in her mother’s experience as part of the Windrush generation. Born in Barbados, Yola’s mother was part of a wave of Caribbean people lured to the U.K. in the wake of World War II with promises of prosperity, only to arrive and find little waiting for them. Yola’s mother never received what was owed to her, even at the end of her career.
“They said that her work records were lost in a fire — an imaginary fire, that it turns out didn’t happen,” Yola says. “They lost her records — and just coincidentally, all the other Black people’s records. She worked for 30 years, and they couldn’t find the record, so she didn’t qualify for her superannuation pension. She died before she ever got it.”
Yola could have made “Ready” a dark, vengeful song. Instead, the tune sounds like a spiritual cousin to the Thriller standout “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’.” It also has a deep connection to Afrobeat, a spiritual touchpoint for Yola.
“When I hear reggae, dancehall — my butt will do the same thing any other Caribbean will do,” she says. “When I hear Afrobeat, I am still utterly entranced and obsessed. I don’t know what the hell we did before Afrobeat, but I don’t want to remember. I’m not interested in remembering what happened before that.”
Firmly connected to her roots, Yola says the joy in her music has permeated her offstage life. Finding her way through the past few difficult years has brought her to a place of peace and happiness. It’s powerful enough that it’s reawakened her body — and her voice.
“All my whistle tones are coming back, because I’m happy. I’m finally just blossoming.”
