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 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. I cut my teeth on a little known scene called the Broker

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 22 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 Douglas.

...