Yola is a six-time GRAMMY-nominated artist, songwriter, and actor who has achieved critical acclaim, breakout success, and has been proclaimed as one of the most exciting and innovative artists in music today. She is championed by tastemakers including Rolling Stone, who said she is “one of contemporary pop’s greatest singers” and by fans including Chaka Khan, Elton John, Chris Stapleton and Gary Clark Jr.. Her critically acclaimed debut album Walk Through Fire released in 2019 received four GRAMMY award nominations including Best New Artist, and established her as a breakout star in the USA. With appearances on NPR’s Tiny Desk, Austin City Limits, Jimmy Kimmel Live!, The Tonight Show, The Late Late Show With James Corden and break out performances at The Hollywood Bowl, Newport Folk Festival, SXSW and Farm Aid alongside artists including, Mavis Staples, The Highwomen and Dolly Parton. Yola featured in The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s The Unbroken Circle exhibit paired with Dolly Parton and performed on PBS’s Great Performances: GRAMMY Salute to Music Legends show, honoring Sister Rosetta Tharp as well as featured on Ringo Star’s single “Here’s To The Night” alongside Paul McCartney, Dave Grohl and Lenny Kravitz.
Yola has also supported a number of charitable and public-awareness initiatives, including appearing on CBS’s "Play On” benefit concert alongside Gary Clark Jr., Ziggy Marley, Andra Day and Snoop Dogg, helping charities NAACP LDF and WhyHunger. She also featured on BBC’s Children in Need single “Stop Crying Your Heart Out,” WME’s RWQuarantunes and "Twitch Aid," raising funds for the World Health Organization performing alongside John Legend. Yola took part in BMI’s Tennessee Diversity Consortium Surviving Crisis panel and contributed a performance for Annie Lennox’s Circle Music Auction.
Following the success of her acclaimed 2021 album Stand For Myself, which landed two additional Grammy nominations, aclaim from The New York Times, Rolling Stone, W magazine, Variety, Entertainment Weekly, and NPR Music, who proclaimed it “the best soul album of the last 20 years. She was the cover of American Songwriter and Flood Magazine, featured by Essence, Switched on Pop and made TV appearances with Jimmy Kimmel Live, The Tonight Show, Access Hollywood, CBS Mornings, The Late Show, as well as performing at Love Rocks and CMT’s artist of the year, and much more. Yola also made her headline debut at the Ryman auditorium in Nashville and joined Chris Stapleton on dates including Madison Square Garden, NYC.
Yola made her acting debut portraying the founder of rock and roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, in Baz Luhrmann’s ELVIS, and earned a NAACP Image Award nomination for Outstanding Breakthrough Performance in a Motion Picture. She made her awards show performance debut at the American Music Awards in November 2022 as their featured SONG OF THE SOUL performer. That same evening, the ELVIS movie soundtrack won the "Favorite Soundtrack" award. Yola is a member of The Recording Academy’s Black Music Collective, and to celebrate Yola’s impact and influence on music, her guitar was included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s Right Here, Right Now exhibit.
She recently returned with "Future Enemies," her first new music in three years and the lead single from her upcoming EP, My Way. Blending progressive R&B with haunting electronica co-produced by Yola, Sean Douglas, and Zach Skelton, and received widespread critical acclaim from The New York Times to Variety who said Yola is “one of the greatest and most magnetic singers working today.”
Currently, Yola also stars on the hit Broadway musical Hadestown in New York City, portraying Persephone.
