Yola at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
Between 2019 and 2021, it seemed like Yola went from being well-known in smaller circles to being talked about all over Nashville in several musical contexts. In her online store she sells a colorful T-shirt that reads “Genre Fluid,” and that’s the best description I know for an artist who navigates the musical spaces of R&B, folk, funk and soul so easily. Yola’s latest release, January’s My Way EP, includes more pop, electronic dance, Afrobeat and even disco in the mix to create banging anthems celebrating agency and personal growth.
Summer Joy at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
After several years in Music City, U.K. native Yola left for New York — among other things, to take on the role of Persephone in the Broadway production of Hadestown. The crowd filled The Basement East slowly ahead of her return on Thursday; there was no line down the block when I arrived. But anyone who missed delightful opener Summer Joy should spend some remedial time watching her videos on YouTube. The Nashville songwriter’s stage setup was deceptively simple, consisting of just her and an electric guitarist, but her powerful voice didn’t need complicated arrangements. The set included a cover of Miss Lauryn Hill’s “I Gotta Find Peace of Mind,” a song Summer Joy wistfully admitted that she wishes she wrote, as well as a few singles such as “Gotta Feed” and “Bum Boy.” However, the best moments in her selection of slow-burning jams came when she told stories about her creative process and sang new songs that will be on her upcoming EP. She ended with a tremendous song called “Siren” that explores the difficulty of finding one’s own voice amid the sea of loud ones crashing all around us in contemporary society. Mark your calendar for her June 7 performance at Musicians Corner.
Yola at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
If Summer Joy’s warm-up set of R&B and soul was like a relaxing bath of just the right temperature, Yola gave those rejuvenated muscles a workout. Her band included a guitarist, a bassist and two background vocalists, working with recorded beats that included drums and keys — all supporting the glorious, velvety-smooth voice that emerges when Yola opens her mouth to sing. She dug deep into her vocal range on new arrangements of several songs from the stellar 2021 album Stand for Myself, such as “If I Had to Do It All Again,” “Break the Bough” (which she described as “a party funeral song”), “Diamond Studded Shoes” and her set-closing “Stand for Myself.”
By the third song, the crowd was dancing and grooving. It’s been some time since I’ve seen such blissful looks on the face of a concert audience, especially during the My Way song “Symphony,” whose sensual nature Yola emphasized in her introduction as she encouraged the now-full house to shake its collective behind.
Yola at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
The Bristol-born songsmith also charmed us with stories about the songs on My Way, among other anecdotes. She pointed out that her West Country accent — with its “hard ‘arghs,’” cue rimshot — is the one that Hollywood used as the template for what pop culture has come to know as pirate speech, thanks in part to famous pirates like Blackbeard also hailing from that part of the U.K. The enthralled audience knew the new songs and danced with abandon during “Temporary,” “My Way” and “Ready.”
She also treated her fans to a selection of covers that she told us she sings in the shower, like Prince’s “Let’s Go Crazy,” Anita Baker’s “Sweet Love” and Yarbrough & Peoples’ “Don’t Stop the Music.” (The slinky, synth-laced “Don’t Stop” she recalled performing back in the day with West London electronic production crew Bugz in the Attic.)
The mix of songs old, new and reimagined made for an intoxicating patchwork hour-and-a-half of music that was powerful and gorgeous in its entirety, delighting both veteran fans and the newbies. Yola’s played bigger stages — even the hallowed Ryman — but if I had to do it all again, I’d still choose to see her in a more intimate setting such as The Basement East. Her voice and joyful vibes filled every inch of the room, giving her audience a much-needed reprieve from the stresses of day-to-day life. Yola is doing things her way now, and her way is pretty fantastic.
The Spin: Yola at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
With Summer Joy
Yola at The Basement East, 5/15/2025
