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On Yola And The Importance Of The Soul Of Black Folk
Something is happening here. What it IS, is precisely clear. For roughly the past half-decade, folk and country have been gaining ground on dominating pop music’s grip on the global zeitgeist. However, something’s been missing. But now, it’s arrived in full. On January 10, I saw Yola headline a sold-out 9:30 Club in Washington, DC. Her voice resonated with truths I didn’t wholly know existed until I saw her perform live. It was the power of her distinctively Black voice that impacted me. The soul of Black folk is what was missing from country music’s inevitable rise to pop music domination.
“I will say this about this cross-pollination of genres: I call it the slurry. When rivulets of what people popularly respond to combine, we get the slurry effect.” When needing to molecularly understand why modern country and folk music are so damned good right now, I turn to this definition by my dear friend and noted author Casey Rae, the one-time chief of the Future of Music Coalition and currently the Director of Music Licensing at SiriusXM Radio. He was also a professor at both Georgetown University and the Berklee College of Music. He’d know. However, when I need my molecules…my very being…my soul to connect with why country and folk music are the best right now, I listen to Yola. Yola’s voice simplifies the beautiful slurry of largely Black borne and Black…
