DIY VIRAL
Jolagenre-wise, music has always been hard to pin down, but that's just the way she likes it – and her new EP, My waydoes not differ.
“I've been planning this 100% for years,” the 41-year-old singer-songwriter said. Us Weekly in her new project, which dropped on Friday, January 17. “I'm not a minimalist, I'm a complete maximalist. So I'm reclaiming time from that part of my life.
'This Part' refers to her years as a vocalist on the London music scene, lending her powerful pipes to the likes of Massive Attack and Bugz in the Attic. However, when she later established a solo career, many US listeners (and critics) mistakenly believed that her main influence was Americana, due in part to the country-leaning vibes of her debut album. Walk through fire. The truth is that she is always immersed in everything—and My way allowed her to tap into the fractured rhythm and trip hop sounds she explored a decade ago, before anyone knew her name.
“I was definitely boxed in, which I think helped me get booked, so I'm not going to fight it too hard,” she explained. “You get into scenes, even though you don't always fit into those scenes. … I had country associations and I definitely had people from the country scene driving me around. So my associations brought me into that space, but they weren't where I came from musically.
Jola's second full-length album, Stand up for yourselffelt truer to her, but the Americana label stuck even as her audience expanded.
“It's all been this process of getting closer and closer to being able to tell my story and the narrative of what my relationship with music was and is,” she said. We. “When I was a published writer and I wrote for people who were in a popular space, I definitely had projects that were in that space. But those who were most successful were closer to the soul space. My role was always in some permutation of soul music, either over dance music, or in this broken beat scene, or whether it was jazz. My approach has always been closeness to the soul, and so that has been my mission. I think I started it Stand up for yourselfand I probably used it to the furthest integer in this EP.
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Fans who have seen Yola preview some of her new songs live over the past year know that My way doesn't sound like anything she's released before. “Future Enemies” opens with a pulsing electronic beat before building to a soaring, arena-ready chorus, while “Ready” is directly inspired by the break beat scene where Yola entered the UK.
However, if those fans were paying close attention, they might have guessed which direction she was headed, as she sprinkled soul covers throughout her sets. “I told you exactly the plan!” she scoffed.
Yola recovered his narrative referred to My way cover art showing her wearing a crown and standing between two extremely muscular (and shirtless) men.
“I was talking to people about the photoshoots I had done that were so lucrative. … I was like, “Why are we enlightening me like that?” she remembered. “And so I made this Pinterest folder of how to light me up and how not to light me up. I put all the crappy, ashy photos of me in one, and then a handful of luscious, luscious photos in the other — and there were too many of them in one. a lot, but the second not enough.
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The concept was inspired by her Ghanaian and Bajan heritage, as well as her skin tone, which she says lightened when she moved from dreary London to relatively sunny Tennessee and later New York.
“I really thought, 'I really have to have it in my equatorial bag.' I really need to give hydrated, melanized, African, Caribbean, my bloodlines, give where my body wants to be,” she said. “When you see this photo, you think, 'It should have involved black people,' because it feels different. It feels equatorial, it feels conceived in a way that can understand and see my beauty without trying to fade it, without trying to burn it with a crazy highlighter , to make my skin tone look lighter without wanting to retouch my nose straighter”.
The result is an image that is instantly iconic and fitting for the woman who made her Broadway debut last year as Persephone Hadestown and rock pioneer incarnate Sister Rosetta Tharp on the big screen in 2022 Elvis.
“I'm the main character. I'm served,” Yola added. “I'm loved through service. I don't serve that world, those expectations that are the lion's share of people waiting for me. I put a stake through this vampire's heart and it dies. Everything about making this record went against everything the world expects from someone like me.
Jolas My way The EP is out now. She Sovereign Soul the tour kicks off in Denver on May 10. Tickets will go on sale Friday, January 24, with a fan pre-sale. More details to come here.
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DIY VIRAL
