Bob Dylan Center. Michael Chaiken, the curator, reveals the archives. By Brian Wise.

TAKING A STAND!

>>> But it’s in the lyrical messages throughout Stand For Myself that Yola’s life experiences really shine through, songs seeking to empower the marginalised and provoke empathy and connection regardless of circumstance. “I’ve learned things across my life, about standing in my power without being reduced by it,” Yola offers. “And in black lady life being reduced by your power is almost a specialist subject, like being a trophy, strong black woman can then lead to just endless neglect, like, ‘Great, you can deal with anything so let’s just kick you into this burning house, she’ll be fine!’ And ’Oh, wow, you’ve got a broken leg but you won’t need crutches, you won’t need medication!’ “Like the kind of things that occur for black women almost took Serena Williams out. And you remember the story of her and her giving birth, and them going ‘She’ll be fine!’ And she almost dies, I’m like, it doesn’t matter how much of the archetypal strong black woman you are, like, the ability for people that don’t see themselves as strong to kill you, is amazing, which must mean they’re stronger than you. “So, I needed to write an album that’s so from my lens that is telling the story of, you know, my life. Like the first song [‘Barely Alive’] is about how I’m really minimising myself to try and fit in. And that’s what kids do anyway. And you do that from your teens into your 20s. You just do that. And then like you realise, at some point, that it’s utterly unsustainable and isn’t going to bring any joy and it’s a complete trick. “And so, I kind of worked my way through that - through boundaries and through my romantic identity. And I think especially with black women the romantic identity isn’t something that is very much addressed, so to be sentimental and tender and to have nuance in that is almost rebellious.” Whilst growing up Yola found solace in music, as much from the diversity it represented as its usual escapist properties. “When I was a kid, I grew up in a little town outside of Bristol that was really super-duper, duper white,” she smiles. “And I was one of, like, five people in the town that were black, and it was one of those things that when I listened to music, I heard people who could be me. And I saw people that look like me when I was watching the videos or they were on the TV chart shows, it was, like, ‘Oh, wow, they look like me! Oh, that person’s built like me!’ you know, with the old junk in the trunk and everything. “And we’re talking about the heroin chic, ‘90s era, so I couldn’t be swamped with more images of people that don’t look like me at that point, you know? And so yeah, it was really healing to reach out to music and to the story of the diaspora - Africans jettisoned everywhere - and so I could identify with that as well, it was like a comfort. “Also, and maybe more obviously, one half of my ethnicity is Ghanaian and specifically the Ga tribe,

Stand for Myself is available through Easy Eye Sound.

and they for the last few millennia have been the seat of artistic renaissance for a fair amount of humanity, and then were shipped around the world via the slave trade. So, the connection to music in me is something that is literally of antiquity. It’s a literal cultural tradition that goes back millennia.” One of Stand For Myself’s most poignant moments also ties back directly to Yola’s mother, but in a more tragic way. “I feel like I’ve been writing the album for a long time,” she tells. “Because one of the songs ‘Break the Bough’ I started writing it and I played it out after writing it at - or least starting the process - in 2013 on the evening of my mother’s funeral. The bassline came into my head and I was, like, ‘That’s a weird bass-line to come into your head after a funeral’, but I kept with it and then the lyrics started arriving, so I was, like, ‘Okay, well, it looks like it’s something’s coming!’

“And I’d had a writing block and so that was the first time that songs were coming back into my head and it felt like now was the time that I was ready to sing it without crying, even though it’s a total party song. There’s loads of songs that have kind of come up and become even the right time, or just truer over the years that I’ve had them in my mind to be finished.”

Now Yola hopes that this truth that she so eloquently expresses throughout Stand For

Myself resonates properly with the next generation of people seeking to forge their own place and identity in the world. “I really want people to feel something emotional,” she smiles. “I want them to go, ‘Do you know what, actually I am going to take up a bit more space, if I’ve been a bit afraid to’. Because I think that people that are closer to selfactualising are less hateful, and I think that’s helpful. “Also, maybe having the story being that of a nuanced black lady story that they may not have heard before - because I’ll tell you something for nothing, the media ain’t churning them out plentifully - then maybe if they haven’t had that story in their lives before they’ll have it now through the imagery and the sonics and the lyrics, and the media and videos that I put out - everything is going to be telling a nuanced story rather than a trophy story. So, I hope that helps people have more interesting views of women of colour, and for women of colour to feel seen in a more nuanced way than they have been.” And if Yola needs to pass on these powerful messages by couching them in beguiling music, then so be it. “It’s a bit like hypnotism,” she laughs. “With hypnotism the idea is that there’ll be some noise in the room like a clock ticking or some music - maybe some hippy whale song type music - and you try and focus on that. It’s like when you’re watching TV and someone’s trying to get your attention and you just can’t hear them, because you’re so tuned in. “So, when you’ve got that full focus whatever is being said to you, that you’re not focusing on, has the ability to program you, if so desired. In a similar way to when you’re driving on a motorway and you see a billboard, anything that just flashes by your peripheral vision has a greater ability to program you - or at least as great if not greater ability to program you - than what you actually observe consciously. “So, even if people aren’t reading the lyrics and going, ‘Oh my god, okay, so that’s what it’s saying’, I’m hoping that I can dip into their brain in the same way all the marketers do very successfully for the entirety of our lives. I’m forcing you to love yourself and empathise with people so it’s an evil way to do a good thing.”