Switched on Pop - Modern Classics: Yola on Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” and the Longevity of Soul

Episode Date: July 27, 2021

In this installment of Modern Classics we speak to the amazing four-time Grammy Nominee musician, singer and songwriter Yola about her new record, Stand For Myself, and how hearing Childish Gambino’s “Redbone” and all its references to 1970s funk encouraged Yola to unlock her own unprecedented mix of symphonic soul and classic pop. As Yola tells it, it’s not just a sound from the past that she’s conjuring, it’s a sense of possibility. The way that progenitors like Funkadelic, Minnie Ripperton, and the O'Jays combined political protest with deep grooves, what Yola calls “the Mary Poppins philosophy of music” (the groove being the spoonful of sugar to help the socially-conscious medicine go down). With this marriage of sound and statement, Yola makes retro sounds relevant again, as on the title track “Stand For Myself,” where she uses throwback slap bass, fuzz guitar, and orchestral strings to craft a distinctly modern messages about her identity as a Black woman, cultural allyship, and UK politics. Also, why she likes mixes that sound like they have a “big old booty.” Songs Discussed Yola - Stand For Myself, Diamond Studded Shoes, Starlight, Barely Alive, Be My Friend, If I Had to Do it All Again Childish Gambino - Redbone, Riot Bootsy Collins - I’d Rather Be With You Funkadelic - Can You Get to That The O’Jays - Back Stabbers Queen Latifah - U.N.I.T.Y. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It's free for iOS users. Today we're doing another installment of modern classics where we speak with some of our favorite musicians, journalists and friends of the show about a contemporary recording that has an impact on their work and on pop music. And today we're thrilled to welcome four-time Grammy nominee, musician, singer, and songwriter, Yola.

Hi, thanks for having me. Welcome to the show. Really looking forward to this. So Yola, you, you brought us a song. What song did you bring and why? I brought you the song Redbone by Childus Gambino. And I brought it to you because it does something that's really important to me.

It draws a line that I've been fascinated with for a long time. It draws a line from now through the 90s to the 70s. So the whole album of Awaken My Love that Red Bone is from is like an homage to Funkadelic and Parliament. And borrows from loads of songs somewhat traceably, may I add. And you listen to I'd rather be with you by Bootsie Collins. And you're like, oh yeah, I see how this influenced it. It's really like, it really is an homage, like, reimagining of these songs from Can We Get to That? All these kinds of, like, references and picking up of songs of his favorites.

And I am passionate about both eras because they massively influenced this record that I've just written. And so that's why. I'm curious, like, do you remember when you first connected to this song, like when you first heard it, what it meant to you? I think I was going deep and dark into Spotify or something, going, okay, but this is linked to this, how? This is linked to this. How? And making playlists, I just love making playlists. If you happen upon one of my playlists, you're lucky. I sweat over them to make them really well thought out and not, you know, monochromatic or like single aesthetic or single genre. I'm always looking for the connective tissue

between one song and another and how they relate. And so in this process, something came up in the algorithm that I had created through playing all of this kind of music. And it was riot, actually, that came to me. And I was like, this reminds me of something. And so then I start reading about the album. And I'm like, oh, my God, I love this album. And then I come across Redbone.

And I'm like, this does remind me of something. I wonder what that is. And I start digging. And then the kind of the connection to this entire era of funk music and funk rock in Funkadelic and psychedelic and psychedelic soul, as they referenced it. And the joining of those two genres was being discovered again, was being refurb.

packaged and held aloft and celebrated and paid homage to for this era of listeners. And I was like, I'm really glad this is happening because this is something that I've long wanted to do is to kind of, to again, just show some connective tissue in and around this area. There's so much like in this era that is very, very hard to define. And being a self-proclaimed genre fluid. artist as much as people keep on trying to kind of pull me in a direction, I will always say that. You would have not heard me say, I'm this.

And so that's what drew me to this as well, you know, was like the story it was telling of this era of experimentation of music. Yeah, I definitely tune into the funkadelic sort of sounds. You get the slap bass, the fuzzed out guitar. Yes. Those envelope followed sort of wah-wah-we guitars, the Glock and Spiel. This song definitely sounds retro, but I'm curious, as you're someone who thinks about translating sounds across genres and decades, are there things about Redbone that actually sound contemporary to you?

Yes, loads. Because it's like it makes a little stop-off in the 90s in the vocal delivery, almost. Like I know it is referencing Bootsie's delivery, but it's also inescapably molded by 90s hip-hop on R&B. If you have been in that environment of music, you recognize its signature. And that's one thing that I think is interesting to hear popping its head up. Because I think that's something that's happening a lot at the moment is

that era of music. popping its head up again, both, especially in hip-hop, people rediscovering the joy of flow, because I felt like we lost flow for a long time. Like, no one was interested in having an actual flow. And when I was growing up, if you didn't have flow, you were owned and then expelled at great speed. But like, like, it seemed to be acceptable to just say words and that'd be fine. And I've never been okay with an absence of flow.

It's just not something that I've been comfortable with. hip-hop. And so, like, I'm really obsessed with rhythm and of the kind of delivery of this as well. And also, maybe as far and reaching as the mix and the master of, like, how tight everything, the geometry of the master isn't a classic geometry. And there's a far greater rate of compression on this record than there would ever be on a classic Funkadelic record. And I think by doing that by things like the rhythm section and the drums being tighter, like that's really, that's the polish, that's the clean stuff that makes it sound modern. And I think that's what makes it hang in a playlist if you want to be linking something old and something new.

It does a really great job of anything from that record does a really great job of like binding your playlist together in that way. but specifically this song, that really tight but quite voluminous bottom end, booty, as I like to call it, on the mix. Like, the mix has a booty, you know. The attention that it paid to junk in the trunk was, you know, meaningful. I noticed that. I love this analogy because of someone who also mixes music when you can see on an EQ curve, contemporary music literally has a bump. in the bottom. It does.

It's like, bam! There it is. It does. And I think like when you are like, you study music and you're obsessed with it like I am, like, they're the things you notice that like,

that helps you understand how you might want to make your record. You're like, okay. Well, I actually love that aesthetic. I love that it's got a big old booty. And I love that it's got a big old booty because the way that we make mics nowadays and the way that we make, the way that we make sound systems nowadays allows for us to represent that field

in a way that we might not have been able to represent that field in the past, you know? And so we're just writing for the technology that we have. And like, so that is another kind of thing that's really like, that brings something up to current and you can really represent something classic and give it a contemporary treatment. And I think that's one of the things that we did on my record. Your self-described obsession with music is really infectious and it's really, really fun. I think I hear a little bit of the historian when I listen to you and also a little bit of the scientists, but also, as you were just talking about, the artist, I want to hear more about how tracks like Redbone have figured into your creative process.

you have a new album, and it's reaching back to some of these sounds that we've been talking about. Stand for myself, it's a mix of symphonic soul and classic pop with heavy influence from this 70s era. So maybe we can start by taking a listen to the lead single of the same name. What do you want to communicate with this new record? That if you've ever been an other, it's likely at some point in your existence, you've felt the pressure to minimize yourself, to assimilate, to fit in. I think everyone, when they go through their teens, is trying to fit in desperately. So everyone's had that sensation of feeling like they don't,

even if they do, still being like they don't. And that idea of homogenizing, assimilating, minimalizing the interesting parts of yourself the compelling parts of yourself is abuse of yourself. And to do that is to guarantee that you never really self-actualise. You never really figure out your full potential when you minimize and when you try and fit in. And that doing the antithesis of that is the real gift of this mortal coil before we all. inevitably fall off it. And so, yeah, that's

why I want to communicate with this record. Stop trying to fit in. Stop trying to assimilate. Stop trying to make people feel happy. Express yourself. If one of those things happens to accidentally be in a form of assimilation, that's fine. But don't do it on purpose.

Like, just the more that you satisfy what it is within you as a person, the less luck you are to be hateful and without empathy. I'm excited to dive into some of the ways that you communicate that lyrically because there's some very potent moments on the record. But I first want to maybe pull out for a second and think about the soundscape. You were saying earlier that lots of people try to label your music. And you have never said it is this any one thing.

It is pulling from so many different sounds. Could you speak to a little bit about how you thought about constructing this soundscape to tell some of that message? What are the things you're drawing from and what are the things that are new that you're bringing to the picture? So especially with this song, I think it's a very good example. Stam for myself is purposefully abreast a number of things. You can feel the Parliament Funkadelic era in it, in the fuzz guitar, in the slight psychedelic energy of it. But you can also hear like rotary connection as influencing that. Especially if you're acquainted with that fuzz guitar, that's like,

like when we were in the session, I was like, okay, this song inspired this song. I played Iron the Black Gold of the Sun. And they were like, okay, we're not aware of this song. I'm like, get familiar because we're about to like pay some serious homage to it. And so, yeah, like when we're in the session, I was like that's like it's not going to turn out the same because these are the things that I'm into. These are the things that we're going to be leaning into. Aesthetically, maybe melodically, it's far more rock in its delivery.

But there's definitely the psych jazz in its foundational concept of like, you know, the space that it has in it. And the shape of the chords, like the voicing of the chords and things like that was very kind of from that. from its conception, right the way through to the studio. There are so many things that I would draw on that were just part of my childhood and mostly part of my mother's record collection and her obsession with disco and soul music and the adjoining connected tissue

between disco and soul and soul and rock and soul and country and soul and ballads and soul and duop. And it was like, Everything that she was into was connected to soul music in some way. And to the point where I realized that it was probably the most connectable genre of music that exists, that it can exist with everything. And somehow, you know, not lose its potency. And so that's kind of how this record came together.

It's like classic soul music binds all of these things together and has moments in every song where you go, that's a classic soul moment, even though I wasn't aware that that's what was going to. be happening in this song. Clearly, the aesthetic choices here are deliberate and important, and I'm curious if there's something about these choices that helps create the grounding for that message that you're wanting to share that you're speaking about, the anti-assimilation, self-acceptance, looking inward message. Especially with the parliament funkadelic era, that there's so much protest music in songs from like the OJs.

And I really loved like the idea of like a band that exists in disco and funk and soul music that have so many uptempo songs that when you listen to the lyrics you're like, wait a minute.

Why am I like punching the sky to? Like, you know, I've always found that about backstabbers. You like, you go, they smile in your face. all that time they want to take your place than backstabbers and you're like, yeah, our best stabbers

like you're grieving and I'm going why are we going backstabbers? Yeah, who! Wait a minute, hold up, no. That's not good. I'm not saying hooray to backstabbers. We're saying boo, right? That was like the Merry Poppin's spoonful of sugar philosophy

which is hard messages with a little bit of sugar. being the groove. And so, yeah, that's kind of one of the themes that seems to kind of be repeatedly, like, on this record. That sounds a little bit like diamond studded shoes off of your own record. Diamond studded shoes is going, Theresa May, you've got to be having a laugh, love, pretty strong level of, you know, sending up and calling out her shoe choice at a moment where people are, starving to death. And you're going,

I'm sorry, I know you pay me and I'm wearing diamonds right now, but we don't have any money. I was like, because you've spent it. It looks like you've spent it. So maybe if you don't spend it and you're all of your mates, don't spend it,

then we'll have some money. And so I know it seems basic, but apparently that's how money Just don't go spending it on Diamond Sutted Shoes, buddy. So, like, the era was a real kind of, like, it was just a wash with this funky protest music. And right the way through to the 90s, like, I was so into Queen Latifah.

And I remember when I first heard Unity, or UNITY, if you're better known as, and she starts with, Who is calling the bitch? I'm like, no. That's a way to start a song, lady. And, do do do, do, do, do,

you know. And I was like, I fricking love this song so much. It was a reincarnation of exactly the same thing. And I'm going to call it out as it reflects to the larger microcosm and the microcosm of my life, or of her life, should I say.

And I'm going to be very personal. She talks about abuse in that song and patriarchy. And she's calling it all out in the song, you know? And I was like a kid going, yes, speak your truth. Yes. And so, like, I'm just really inspired by it. And I see the thread. I see the thread talking about this.

I think it was a really big thing in the 90s where people were throwing back to, like that era of music. And so, and we seem to be in an era of throwing back to 90s, which was throwing back to then. So there's definitely like a very clear thread from what's happening right now in music to what was happening at that point of era of me growing up

to that first era of influence of, you know, 70s, soul, funk, rock, music. Yeah. And that's why this record sounds the way it does. Maria, you have a podcast now and you need to start acting like it. What's the first step as a podcaster? Well, you have to ask lots of questions. I'm Maria Sharpova, and I'm hosting a new podcast called Pretty Tough. Every week, I'm sitting down with trailblazing women at the top of their game to discuss ambition, work ethic, and the ups and downs that come on the path to achieving greatness.

I have a few pretty tough questions for you. Okay. Ready? Ready. Do not sugarcoat something for me. No. No. We'll dive into their stories and get valuable insights from top executives,

actors, entrepreneurs, and other individuals who have inspired me so much in my own journey. Pretty tough is your front row seat to the women who have demonstrated the power in being unapologetic in their pursuits. I hope you'll join us. New episodes drop Wednesdays on YouTube or in your favorite podcast app. I hear a lot of multi-layered sounds and multi-layered meanings on this out. you know, maybe a song like Great Divide or if I had to do it all again. They're grounded in romance, I would say, but they also are speaking to something larger, you know, a theme about a fight, a fight for freedom, maybe.

Maybe as much a fight for the freedom to nuance to actually, or to freedom to connect. I think one of the things that happens in black lady life is one of the strong black lady trope. And what that gives rise to is neglect and serial neglect on the highest order for the entirety of your existence until you draw a sufficient number of boundaries to make sure that doesn't happen. It's the thing that will be the foundation of a lot of black ladies' life. in the West, but across the world, but especially so much in the West. And so, like, when I'm being sentimental in these ways, and I'm like, I don't know, like, where I'm going to find my connections yet, or how I'm going to connect to you, because it

feels as though there's so much between us, be it a gulf of distance or, but I've got to get there. I've got to get to that place where I'm closer to the people that I love or to the point. person I love or to the situation that I love the most that uplifts me the most. And if I had to do it again, is so much to do with that idea of finding your people and like how, like reaching out and seeking out like help is a really essential part of defeating this negative paradigm of the strong black woman trope. And that really starts with the song before, Be My Friend.

That's asking for allyship and it's asking for connection in those ways. And the lines are like, hoping someone remembers nobody knows your name. And so I ask you, will you be my friend out in the rain? You know, not when it's easy, you know. And so by the time we get to Great Divide, like I'm like, okay, I found people all over the place that are like, we're here for you. Use the word journey to describe the album. Yeah. And I feel like we can hear that.

We open up with a track called Barely Alive. Even though some of the sounds might feel throwbacky, the message is entirely contemporary about struggling to get by. Why to keep going on? And by the end of the album, you take us to the single stand for myself. Yeah. Are we hearing a larger art? of transformation?

Yeah. Like, in a way, it's so important that barely alive is the opening, opening song. It has to be because it's about that stage in my life where I'm minimizing myself to do the fitting in. And so, like, we've got, like, the, I've stopped by going, if you can put, like, like the words are I've been there and I know how it is

I've been living it alone for all these years isolated because I'm a token black lady in Whitesville, UK and, but really

you could also replace those words with oh God and if you want to I'm exasperated and like you are literally

you're doing all the things to survive but not necessarily thrive. And the last words of the song are in the ad lib and tell you everything you need to know. He goes, they didn't take your life. Guess this is living. So it's that whole, oh, well done. So all the shucking and jiving you did and all the please, sorry thank you's,

and the kind of, oh, God, I hope I'm not too black for you. like that you did have meant just about that they didn't kill you. They probably pulled you over. They definitely stopped and searched you. They asked for all of these things. But somehow, even with all of that stuff, you still didn't get killed. So, you know, maybe this kept you alive.

But what now? Now you're alive. What now? So what are you going to do with this whole life thing? Now they didn't kill you. You're just going to carry us chucking and drive into death? Or you're going to go, oh, they didn't kill me. Let's make something of this.

Let's really enjoy this thing. You know, instead of just barely scrape by being a fraction of yourself, you know? Like, that's what leads to all of the misery and all the kind of, well, I can't be happy. So where can you be? Kind of like philosophy that makes people super hateful in every situation that we have to interact with them with. And so that's that feeling. feels like the foundation of a lot of people's hatefulness is achieving nothing, being nothing, feeling nothing. I used to be nothing like you. I used to feel nothing like you. And that's

how we get to the stand for myself. I'm talking to barely alive person going, yeah, that was me. It's not like I don't know. I'm talking about it having been you, not not having any idea. And I'm telling you, like, it's time to kind of start shuffling towards something better before you shuffle off this bloody mortal coil altogether. And so, yeah, that's what the record is, top to bottom. And, like, the volume of this album that is in sentimental feeling is purposeful because we need it. We're social animals.

And especially Starlight. It's at the centre of the album purposefully because we all, none of us are virgins here, are we? No, no virgins? No, they're shaking our heads. No, not here. Looking behind you to see this one,

sneaking up on you. So, from the journey from loss of virginity, if that's how you want to term it, it's also a weird term, isn't it? To marriage, if you happen to be married, wasn't just you crying waiting for the first joyful sexual experience of your life. Some of them were positive. And we never talk about the ones that are formative that allow us to discover who we are

in our sexual selves and our physical selves at all. It's all like, it was all miserable. And then I found the word and I'm finally happy. I'm like, you had fun. I think that's a lot of our stories for a lot of our lives. and like no one's saying the thing that literally every human's doing. And so I was like, there you go. This is what Starlight's for.

It's like, ooh, you know, a positive situation of like discovery. And that part of my life, that is also not a marriage story, not a happily forever after story, but has tenderness and is from a black lady. So I'm now killing the other trope of the hypersexualized black lady trope. I'm like, hey, no. I'm sexual lady, but I'm not hypersexualized. I'm just a normal person, like all the other humans that like to smash occasionally slash lots. So yeah, like the journey is like, I'm not missing out anything in my life here.

I'm going, top to tail. This is what it was, friends. If you like this record, you like my life. Yola, thank you so much for bringing us your modern classic of Redbone and connecting its throwback influences to your. your own work on this latest album, stand for myself. It's been such a pleasure talking to you about your craft, the history that goes into it,

and the way you really lay yourself bare in all of this music. So we really appreciate you joining us today. Thank you, Yawa. Thank you so much for having me. All right. Switched on Pop is produced by Nate Sloan, Megan Lubin, and me, Charlie Harding. We're engineered by Brandon McFarland.

and this episode was edited by Jolie Myers. Social media by Abby Barr and illustrations by Iris Gottlieb. Our executive producers are Nashat, Kerwa, and Hannah Rosen. We're a member of the Box Media Podcast Network and a production of Vulture. You can find more episodes of our show on the Apple Podcast app, Spotify, pretty much anywhere else you get podcasts, or check out our website, switched on pop.com. Stay tuned for more entries in our modern classic series and other summer

specials, all supported by JBL, who has hooked us up with the gear and equipment. We need to make the show as we finally get to travel this summer. We're going to be reporting to you from the road. It's going to be a lot of fun. We have other great guests lined up, so definitely you don't want to miss an episode this summer. And catch us on social media at Switchdown Pop. You can chat with us about what's going on.

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