Song Exploder - Yola - Symphony

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

Yola is a singer/songwriter and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for 4 Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana Album, and Rolling Stone named it one of the best country albums of the year. But the thing is, Yola’s music career wasn’t new, and her background wasn’t in country music. She’s from Bristol in the UK, and starting back in the early 2000s, she was a vocalist recording tracks for DJs and electronic music producers. In January 2025, Yola put out an EP called My Way. And as you’ll hear her explain in this episode, a lot of her new music is motivated by wanting to assert her identity beyond the Americana and country music boundaries. In addition to her music, she’s also acting – she played Sister Rosetta Tharpe in the 2022 film Elvis, and she starred on Broadway in the musical Hadestown. For this episode, I talked to Yola about her song “Symphony,” along with co-writer and co-producer Sean Douglas. Yola and Sean trace the journey of the song “Symphony,” and, along with it, Yola traces her own journey, too.For more info, visit songexploder.net/yola.

You're listening to Song Exploder, where musicians take apart their songs, and piece by piece, tell the story of how they were made. I'm Rishi Kesh Hirwe. This episode has some explicit and adult language. Yola is a singer, songwriter, and actress. She released her solo debut album in 2019, which was nominated for four Grammys, including Best New Artist and Best Americana album, and Rolling Stone named it one of the best country albums of the year. But the thing is, Yola's music career wasn't you. And her background wasn't in country music. She's from Bristol in the UK, and starting back in the early 2000s,

she was a vocalist recording tracks for DJs and electronic music producers. I cut my teeth on a little known scene called The Broken Beat Scene in West London, being like a front woman for hire, and I got hired by a group called Bugs in the Attic. It had a lot of jazz in it, had a lot of funk in it, It had a dancey element to it, and that was like a big part of what built me. And so in January 2025, Yola put out an EP called My Way. And as you'll hear her explain in this episode, a lot of her new music is motivated by wanting to assert her identity beyond the Americana and country music boundaries.

In addition to her music, she's also acting. She played Sister Rosetta Tharp in the 2022 film Elvis, and she starred on Broadway. in the musical Hades Town. For this episode, I talked to Yola about her song Symphony, along with co-writer and co-producer Sean coming up, Yola and Sean traced the journey of the song Symphony,

and along with it, Yola traces her own journey, too. When I first landed here, when I moved from the UK to the US, I'd lost my mother, and I was kind of communing with the music that me and my mother

bonded over, which was a lot of Shania, to be honest, and some Dolly and some other things. And so I kind of went into that space with Will to commune with her a little bit musically. But then once I was done with that, it dawned on me that, like, people didn't seem to exercise a whole lot of curiosity as to how the hell I got here. And it's, oh, because you're centering the things that we need you to centre, which is that you're holding legendary white artists aloft. You're centering whiteness, which society wants generally.

I was like, that's not my mission in life. I'm allowed to be a fan without decapitating my entire personality. But my story is going to be different because I'm from a different continent. And my parents are from Barbados and Ghana and just being first generation and being a Brit. Oh, that makes my story. And so when I was writing this song, just before I was writing this song, I was just before I was writing this song, I was dating and I think I needed to move cities to date. I was still living in

Nashville and I was flying to New York today. Yeah, I spent like a summer staying at my friend's house and we went to these cool little hip-hop 50 events that were going on around the sea. And I just felt like everywhere I went, I was having a different permutation of blackness that was not related to the other in any way. And so, like, I felt like I was just in this place where I was a living example of non-monolithic blackness, and that was really feeding to me, and that, as a result, the likelihood of me finding my person

was going to be there. And so I then made a mission to spend some time in New York and be dating more seriously. That's what this era has been, has been me realizing that if I do, don't tell my story now, then my narrative will be co-opted by people who love the Mami paradigm, the plus-sized dark-skinned black woman in service, who joyfully and willfully shucks her own agency, and that is not remotely in my personality type. And that didn't just manifest

in the creative space. It was in a lot of spaces where I was the assumed fact. friend. People didn't understand that their fat phobia feeds into the nature of their anti-blackness. And so specifically with the song Symphony, that's a really kind of like, I'm Being Loved On song. In full recognition that people my hue and my bill are not the center of rom-coms habitually. And so there's an element of resistance in writing a reality where you're being aggressively loved on. I would start these groups. I call them starter groups. And the idea of forming them was exclusively because I play a little guitar.

But the things that I can imagine are way beyond what I can play on a gazillion instruments. And I need to find someone to help me translate what's in my head. And so the starter team was like a way of making sure that we could get into my brain and figure out what the hell's going on in there. I would take what I call a nugget and it's a voice note, that's a nugget. I was going, I'll put you on, hop a chew ho. Do it by me, oh hi, ah, hi. I'm not even doing all the words yet. I'm just doing vowels.

Oh, hi, how high. So I took it to this duo called The Privilege, Christopher and Christian, to do a pre-demo. And we're not trying to finish it. We're just trying to get the spirit. Christopher and Christian are twins and they're great. They were coming through Nashville, and we found this studio downtown, rented this space. And so one hopped on the drum,

other one hopped on bass, and they just start letting down that bass line up. And I was like, okay, so we're already in. So you have this hook. And, okay, this is an idea for a song. What is this song about? Did you already know? Yeah, I did.

That hook that I'll put you on to this body of mine is very kind of like presumptive. It's very like, congratulations. You've won the competition of access to these titty. And like, it's very like, congratulations. You've won the competition. You get to smash this big. I'm like, it's very like that, you know. In this moment, I talk a lot in production terms.

I'll be like, oh, I really visualise a kind of parliament funcatelic style, stacked focal. And the idea is to try and extricate the spirit to make sure that we don't miss anything. We don't want to need to do any more frills outside of that. But if we need to do everything that is necessary to get the spirit, right. I purposefully leave space for perspective. because I want to collaborate. I love it. It's my favorite part.

And then that's when I show it to Sean and Zach. My name's Sean Douglas, and I work with a great writer-producer, Zach Skelton, very often, and he and I were both big fans of the stuff Yolig put out and didn't know where she was musically at the time, but just had a hang, and she's obviously, like, insanely talented. And, like, Yola brought in these seeds of songs.

And a lot of them bore this sort of frustration or complications of old relationships. And this one really stood out because it was really visceral and it felt overtly in your body and felt overtly positive. I do remember it was a few days. It must have been a few days into us working together because I remember being much more comfortable with the idea that, like, Zach and I heard this thing,

this amazing verse and this baseline that is like super catchy in and of itself. It was an interesting to sort of like take a couple days and sort of figure out the way. exactly you wanted to do because it wasn't anything you were done before. No. Especially with a celebration song like this, you have to explain the rest of it. Like, what are you even, you're going to put someone onto your body? Like, what, that's not even a thing people say. And so you have to, you have to kind of deconstruct why is this important?

Yes. Because, you know, people don't center, you know, the fat black femme in a romantic guys in a way that's highly celebratory and highly sex positive and, highly valued. And that's what this song is. And it's not very often that I meet people who can get out of the way of their own agenda for long enough to hear what's in my head, especially people of stature writing-wise. And so that's something that is mad, rare, and I'm mad grateful to Sean for it. Like, it's a good-ass time. Yeah, you mean, Zach, we lucked out with the kind of that mind-melt, yeah. The mind-meld. We started working on it at Zach Skelton's studio over here in West Hollywood,

she came to us with the bass line and that melody. Sometimes when there's material that's been started before, you know, you'll pull up stems and start writing off of the Elmas that were already there. To make it kind of easier to work on, Zach pulled the stems into his session, and then Zach added this breakbeat. One of my favorite parts, one of the things I love in the song is this guy. Oh, yeah. That's Zach?

Yeah, that little vocal sample is, one of the first things Zach added to the little stems once he pulled them in. If you grew up on hip-hop things and DJ premiere beats and things like that, you just want a cool vocal sample which just gives the whole thing some muscle. So then we were kind of looping that verse

and kind of singing the verse part over that. So you're in the groove and then riding this baseline and you sort of build up all this tension. You're not going anywhere harmonically different. You're sitting in that pocket, which feels really good. I was on the roads

and we can just playing that same tempo. So once you do that for, you know, 16 bars, you're going to want to stretch and go to this, you know, bigger sort of chordal moment. I started playing that progression. I was like, we can get a little popier here and she was super down for that.

I felt like when you started playing those chords, I started hearing a reacting melody. And we just go then and want got this big soul chorus out of it. My conversation with Yola and Sean Douglas continues after this. I have a new album of My Own coming out on April 24th.

It's been about 15 years since I last put out a full length, and this is the first one that'll be out under my own name, Rishikesh Her Way. I started making Song Exploder when I was feeling lost in my own music career. And then, for over a decade, I've gotten to have these incredible conversations about the process of making music, talking to other artists, and it made me completely rethink my relationship to music and my way of writing songs. And this album is the product of all of that. It features contributions from some of my favorite artists, including some folks that you may have heard on this podcast, like Iron and Wine, Kevin Morby, Vagabon, Fenlily, and the producer Phil Wine Robe.

I'm going to be on tour playing in cities across the U.S. starting in April, and I'm trying to bring the spirit of the podcast with me. So every show that I'm playing will begin with a conversation about the album with a different amazing guest moderator in each city, like Adam Scott, Samin Nasrat, Jason Manzukas, Josh Malina, Minjin, Lin-Lena. Lee, Ken Jennings, John Roderick, Austin Cleon, and more. They're all going to be my conversation partners on stage, and then I'll play with my band. The album is called In the Last Hour of Light, and the first couple songs are out now. You can listen to the music and get tickets for the shows on my website, rishikash.co, or just go to songexploder.net slash live. That's songexploder.net slash live. Thanks. So the three of you made this demo in Zach's studio. Did you have a plan for what you were going to do with it after that? Yeah. We then go into Gold Diggism, record a bunch of stuff. And it was very much a

testing situation of like, do I need to do a live session? I'm going to have to do one to find out whether that's what I want to do because this is my first time since being in the country that I've had the opportunity to do it. In Gold Digger Studio, we got all the live guys playing for a couple days, get live takes, and it was just so fun to do because it's just not the norm for me. A drummer that I really rate, and it was just an absolute beast, Howard Artists. We toured together for years, a really stunning player. I was like, he's 100% the drummer. So, divinity rocks, bass player. Might know her from, I don't know, Beyonce. I was like, I want want her fingers doing the magic on this particular bass line.

Yeah, and she did an amazing job of, you know, that Ben is so specific in the demo that to get the same feel for the live recording was kind of, I didn't think we would get it. I thought we'd honestly go back to the other one, but she crushed. She crushed. So that was like the foundation of what the beginning of like the live session idea is that I was really close to some real monsters. Some real badasses. Who's singing there?

Oh my goodness gracious. If you speak to anyone that's ever played in a live band of mine, they'll tell you, like, I've got a problem with putting mics in front of everyone's faces. I'm like, everyone's singing. I love a group vocal. This is when I get into my vocal biomechanics lecturing bag. So specifically vocally, I asked for a mezzo-soprano vocal with a lot of low formant in the voice. And then I asked for a soprano singer with a lot of soft palate resonation.

And when the backing vocalists were recording their parts, were you in the room with them? Were you singing along with them? Or were you in the control room? I was in the control room, pointing and waving. And that was my time to run the session. When vocals come in, then I'm producer. And then when guitars or keys come in, then Sean's producer, when another instrument comes in, Zach's producer. But that was a moment where they looked at me like,

this is literally what you lectured. Do it. Just take your time. Just take your time. I will not break your heart. Your heart. Yola got hyper-specific with them about intonation and sort of phrasing of it.

And it's amazing how much that changes the way it comes through. And like singing that is like a diaphragm workout. When we were tracking the BGVs, remember? And I was like in front of the glass with like my gut fully out, okay? Like belly button on show situation. And I'm literally going, if I don't see diaphragmatic hits,

you're not sitting this right. I need to see guts move. Just take your time. Just take your time. I will not break your... You can't really do the vocal if you're not doing the big hits. Your heart, go round.

Chills up my spine. Chills up my spine. You make the music start and start, and start. The hook is really tight. like staccato and syncopated. It needed something that was the antithesis of that. And so we needed a big tada.

I felt like once we got to the horn stacks, the whole song feels just physical. Once you got there, you start to go, oh yeah, it's like a record. When I used to be on tour, kind of in my bugging the attic era, we were doing this festival in Australia called Good Vibrations Festival.

And we were opening for James Brown, no less. And I'd see him for about a month. We'd all sit together. And I feel like the outro of symphony, you'll hear me go, wah! Then I go into, Your love, your love gimmick,

your love, your love, your love, your love. That wouldn't be out of place on a house tune because that was my other bread and butter. I was the house vocal for DJ producers on lots and lots of house tunes. And all of that history, this song is piecing together. Sonically, all the different parts of my life.

Vocally, they are snapshots right the way through. I remember we were in Gold Digger Studio, and she would knock out her leads in like three takes, which for me and Zach working in more pop-leaning stuff is like a rarity, but such a luxury. And she just crushes it and you go, oh, That's awesome. The engineers and me and Zach were just kind of like looking through the glass into the booth and just kind of jazz on the floor of moment.

It was crazy. I love collaborating. I love being part of a team. And so that's what led me to these songs of celebration and just a little bit of introspection on my situation. I feel like this song really encapsulates the joy of mind melds. And it's kind of like about finding my partner Henry here and a mind mel of a different kind. And so, yeah, the kind of lyrics of this song

are very like luxuriating in this kind of smugness of finding someone. But I wrote it before I met him. I wrote it to manifest him. And then he turned up and he was exactly this song. And that was it. And now here's Symphony by Yola in its entirety. Visit SongExploder.com.

slash Yola to learn more, and to find links to buy or stream this song. This episode was produced by me, along with Craig Ely, Kathleen Smith, and Mary Dolan, with production assistants from Tiger Biscope. Special thanks to Christian and Christopher Underwood from the privilege for their help. The episode artwork is by Carlos Lerma, and I made the show's theme music and logo. Song Exploder is a proud member of Radiotopia from PRX, and network of independent, listener-supported, artist-owned podcasts. You can learn more about our shows at Radiotopia.fm.

If you'd like to hear more from me, you can sign up for my newsletter. You can find a link to it on the Song Exploder website. You can also follow me on Instagram, and you can get a SongExploder t-shirt at songexploder.net slash shirt. I'm Rishi Kesh Hereway. Thanks for listening.