Yola leads a generation of Black female artists standing for themselves

The sheer number of Grammy nominations that Yola and Allison Russell have racked up in the past two years -- eight, in categories occupying the intersection between country music's roots and Americana's raw hybrid of pop, folk and soul -- showcase the excellence the artists have achieved.

But when the tandem headline and open Yola's tour kickoff at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on March 3, something greater than an night of critically-acclaimed music is at stake.

In country music's mother church, the evening will be a celebration of the profound work done by Black women in country and Americana music in the past 24 months, led by Yola, a British woman of Caribbean heritage and Russell, her Caribbean and Scotch-Canadian chosen sister born in Montreal.

"I'm terrified and excited at the same time," Yola, shouting through laughter, told The Tennessean about the first concert on her tour. She says unequivocally: "I'm making the statement now for women in music broadly, and women of color in music specifically that you don't have to be in service to someone else's art or vision of yourself to be worthy of appreciation."

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The idea that the concert could be called a "chosen family union" instead of a "chosen family reunion" emerged in conversation between The Tennessean and Russell. It's a notion that excites the artist.

"If you're in the Ryman, on March 3, it's a room of people ready and willing to see everyone in attendance and see them in their full and most authentic humanity. We're there to honor the foundation being set for total, whole, equal, and human creativity in a 'new Nashville.'"

Black women who would have first existed in the colonial era Confederacy as enslaved people are now holding space for each other on Nashville's most celebrated stage -- at an incredibly dynamic, frantic time.

Impressively, it feels like they planned it this way two years ago.

Stranded in America due to travel issues, Yola joined Russell's family as a guest and roommate living in Rhiannon Giddens' Antioch, Tennessee home where Russell stayed during the first wave of COVID-19's 2020 quarantine. The time spent at the home's kitchen table ("hours, plotting and scheming, until five in the morning," Yola said.) included poring as much over how to self-light Black skin for their quarantine streaming performances (like Yola's August 2020 NPR Tiny Desk) as they did lyrics, melodies, and release strategies for the albums that became Russell's May 2021-released "Outside Child" and Yola's July 2021-released "Stand For Myself."

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As key as that time seems in forging the bond that birthed a revolution, the partnership started much less formally three years prior.

"When I met Yola, I was mesmerized by her singing, writing and performance," Russell tells The Tennessean about encountering her at July 2017's Calgary Folk Festival. "Actually, we were together -- Yola, my husband JT, and my daughter, Ida -- for three consecutive weekends in Canada that summer. By the end of that time, Yola and I were singing together, and by the Edmonton Folk Festival at the end of that run, Rhiannon and Brandi Carlile were booked there, and we all were able to get to know each other better and become fast friends."

Upon spending the better part of three hours talking with Yola, Russell, and Joy Oladokun, a singer-songwriter inspired by their work -- who also is a credited writer on Yola's 2022 Grammy-nominated Best America album "Stand For Myself" -- it becomes apparent that grandiose claims about the work that artists like Yola, Russell, and numerous other allies, rising stars, and vaunted professionals are doing is not being overstated with any manner of grandiose descriptors.

On working with Yola on soulful, but weary and proud "Stand For Myself" opener "Barely Alive," Oladokun (who Yola describes as "essential" to her album and "another dark-skinned girl who loves guitar music") adds, "Ahhh, Queen Yola, the living legend" with a fond note in her soft voice. "She's a kindred spirit. We created an honest moment that hopefully will inspire other unique perspectives that have been marginalized for so long."

Comparatively, with direct defiance, Allison Russell sings on "Outside Child's" "Nightflyer" -- a song nominated for Best American Roots Song and Performance at the forthcoming 64th Grammy Awards -- "What the hell could they bring to stop me, Lord? / Nothing from the earth, nothing from the sea / Not a God almighty thing." The song serves as a healing salve for the survivor of childhood parental sexual abuse. Moreover, it has evolved into one -- of many -- anthems upon which this transcendent social movement forged in songs and rhythms.

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It's one of the best -- but not one of the first -- times Russell has turned her voice into a weapon for justice and visibility for marginalized communities.

Before the latter half of the 2010s, she was a notable folk artist as a member of Birds of Chicago with her husband JT Nero. However, in 2019, she paired with fellow Black female roots and folk musicians Rhiannon Giddens, Leyla McCalla, and Amythyst Kiah for the Smithsonian Folkways Records-released "Songs of Our Native Daughters" album.

Via the well-regarded collection, the Black female quartet reclaims the banjo's roots as an instrument African-Americans immigrated to America by playing songs written after the group read slave narratives and the scripts of early minstrel shows. In a 2021 interview, Russell called the album "reparational art" that served not just to heal Black people but to "heal everyone by teaching, through music, a much less skewed -- and decolonized -- version of history."

If Russell's bringing the words, Yola's bringing what she calls "the grooves." This is not to undercut the writing on her album. However, Yola's July 2021-released "Stand For Myself" seamlessly blends disco, funk, rock, and country into an album you'd call "eclectic" if you -- as many Americans have not -- grew up listening to genre-agnostic UK radio as a child.

In an era where diversity sprang forth across radio dials in the US, in the UK, it merged. As the Ryman headliner notes, she spent her teenage years hearing an R&B group like Brownstone, alt-pop artists Beck and Bjork, rappers A Tribe Called Quest, Soundgarden's grunge, and Shania Twain's country on the same station. Couple that with a mother as equally obsessed with playing Barry White's disco records as she was with playing funk/rock/country hybrid 70s act Little Feat in their home -- the creative formation of a record that can encompass proud torch song "Stand For Myself" and "Dancing Away In Tears'" discofied vibes makes sense.

"I'm standing at a big, significant Hellmouth, lion's den and wind tunnel of activity," Yola continues regarding her take on navigating America as a Black female artist who has a clear vision of how she wants to evolve the world. Jokingly, she notes that taking much of the creative helm for her "Stand For Myself" album from her creative collaborator and Easy Eye Sound label owner Dan Auerbach involved saying, "Yes, I'm late [to taking control of my career], but I'm here now, and here's what we're doing!"

In total, Russell offers a hopeful note about March 3 that highlights the moment's full power:

"I'm thrilled that Yola's career has gotten to the moment where she can [headline the Ryman]. I'm also grateful that she's remained in intentional coalition with other artists, like myself, who, in the past, have not been able to play in rooms like that. She's keeping a door wide open to continue the necessary rallying and development of a mainstreaming community and movement for Black and marginalized people and artists."

She punctuates that point with a manifesto of sorts:

"We're clearly not healed yet as a country, music industry and nation. But Yola, I and others are here as much to empower and heal as to do the tough work required to open up spaces and make everyone feel welcome."

This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Yola at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium on March 3 tour