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- The age that I first called myself a singer was age four.
And I remember watching Michael Jackson
in The Jackson 5 on some like vintage footage.
And I was like, "How old is he?"
And my mom said, "Five."
And I was like, "Oh no, I think I've only got like a year."
And then I found out that, you know,
not everyone starts at five,
but for a moment it was serious.
I'm Yola, and this is On the Rise.
When I was a kid, I was obsessed with the song, "Push it."
But my mom wouldn't let me buy it cause it was dirty.
But she didn't know who I was at the time.
Like I was like, nah it still resonates with me now.
So I was right, you were wrong.
"Shut up," as Eugene Yang says.
And (laughs) I don't really remember
like a first celebrity crush so much
because I grew up in little village in England
and like, it was like everything
was like nothing to do with me.
It was like, "Hi, this isn't you.
"Hi, this isn't you either."
I felt really like outside of just the purview
of being included.
But nowadays, I remember flicking on, Insecure,
and being like half that cast can get it.
Okay (laughs).
I was like Kendrick, FYI, find me.
Like Jay Ellis, find me.
Alexander, find me.
Anyone from, Insecure, follow me on Insta.
Elvis, is my debut movie.
I know, what a way to debut.
And my audition was, my publicist, Doug,
with a phone in his kitchen
and he was filming me
and I was just singing a song that I sing in the shower,
"Didn't It Rain," which is Sister Rosetta Tharpe's version.
I was auditioning for the soundtrack
and I was like, "Maybe, maybe, I get a role in the movie.
"I don't know."
So I went into the RCA Studio A in Nashville with Dave Cobb.
And we were tracking and Baz was there,
and Austin was there and all the band.
And I was getting into this kind of,
acting, singing mentality.
Baz's nose was right up against the glass
of the vocal booth,
and he was looking at me going,
"I think we found our Sister Rosetta."
I was just with him the other day,
and he was like, "Oh no, that was, I knew.
"That was when I knew."
It felt, this most amazing privilege
and duty to portray Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
It felt like, I have this rare opportunity
to bring her name and her legacy
to a whole new generation of people.
I get to make young black girls feel like they have a right
to reach for the guitar.
And no one can tell them that that ain't a thing
that a black girl does.
Like they did me.
And of course give Elvis' story context as well.
So people go, "Okay, he's an icon, like,
"where'd he get it from?"
And Black America is the answer.
And I get to show Sister Rosetta Tharpe
as the elder and the inventor of rock and roll,
which is what she was,
but because of segregation, didn't get the credit.
That means a lot to me personally as well,
as like how much I feel I owe to Black America as a person.
I have an absolute mountain of respect for Baz,
for doing it this way.
Which has put Elvis' story in the context of Black America.
Him growing up on the Black side of the segregation line,
and what that means for his arc.
To be a director, a writer, a filmmaker.
Someone who goes, "I see an injustice
"and I really wanna rectify that."
I just don't see that enough, babes, you know.
I don't see it enough.
And then he cast me in the role
that I would always wanna play
if there was ever a debut role on planet Earth.
So thanks for that.
And also Austin sang his (beep) off.
If you didn't know that he was singing,
he sang his (beep) clean off.
Austin, get it.
Like the whole cast killed the game,
but like (claps) yes.
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This is my first acting role,
and I would love to do more acting.
In all realism, like I know that cinema
and television do us dirty all the time.
By us, I mean plus size, dark skin Black women.
Like we get done dirty on the rags.
Like it's ridiculous.
They be like, "Okay, you get to be like comedic relief.
"Like, no one's gonna take you seriously
"as like this gorgeous love interest.
"You're gonna have to just be like this clown on the side
"or slave movie 5,001."
Who the (beep) wants that,
but still like, you know,
there's so many daft roles for people that look like me.
So I'd love to, as long as it's something that is not toxic
for people that look like me.
Something really positive for the culture
and for my particular demographic.
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I had a lot of role models and inspirations growing up.
I think Tina played a really big part in my understanding
of my voice.
Tina Turner has this rasp.
She has this really heavy crying tone,
and that kind of sobbing tone.
And when she gets to the top of her body,
how her voice breaks up,
that's what my voice does.
There were some people in the nineties
that had that kind of voice.
Your Mary J's,
like you get that energy from like Brownstone to a degree.
And En Vogue, they came with like the big voices.
I was like, "Yes!"
Like they gave me this wonderful context
to like understand the textual range of my voice.
To be able to like use your voice, like an instrument.
That's something that I find really like powerful.
And when in the process of like making a record
at production, stuff like that,
that's something that's really like essential
to my mode of expression.
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If I wasn't being an artist out in these streets,
I would probably be a lecturer again.
I used to deal with vocal biomechanics.
I was a coach.
When I had students, I'd take them on
and like, I'd document their experience
and I'd try and get like an arc
of like biologically what was affecting them,
how their psychology would affect their biology,
how the environment would affect their psychology,
and their biology.
I wrote a course and then I lectured it.
And so maybe at some point I might do that
when I'm older anyway.
It'd probably be called YQ,
cause my real full name's Yolanda,
Yolanda Quartey, so it would be the Y, but YQ.
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I feel like one of just the most tearful moments,
I was on tour in Germany,
and I got news that I'd been nominated for a Grammy.
And it was Best New Artist.
I just burst out in floods of tears.
I was like, "Oh my God, this is like insane."
I almost didn't quite know what it was.
And then I heard who else was in the category,
and I was like,
"Well, the great thing is that I could really relax."
Because we've got Lizzo, Billie Eilish, and Lil Nas X,
amongst many others that have already had a bunch
of number ones,
and I've literally just, I don't even live in this country
at that point (laughs).
I don't even have a base in this country.
It was just so unreal,
because you know, I've been homeless,
and I've been poor a lot of my life, like, you know,
I don't really come from much, you know?
So that was just everything.
Then another three come in,
and I'm like, "What? What's happening? How?"
And then obviously this year, we got another two.
I got to go into my Instagram
and change four-time Grammy nominee
to six-time Grammy nominee.
That felt good.
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I'm really excited to have this platform,
especially in the context of the Elvis movie,
because one of my, like profound missions in music
is kind of touched on in the movie.
And it's this idea of like how genres relate to each other.
I identify as genre-fluid, musically.
People always wanna kind of put you into these boxes,
and I think one of the most gratifying
and like satisfying things you can do is be the master
of your own destiny.
And so that's kind of why I coined that term.
FYI, if you hear anyone else using it, it was me sunshine.
Okay?
Don't give that credit to some old White guy.
It was me, okay?
I want a hundred percent to have the freedom
to combine everything that I love in music.
I want all of this stuff to coalesce,
and to find the connective tissue between this music.
That's the privilege
of like this platform, is espousing the virtues
of defining yourself, especially for artists of color.
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In five years, I see myself living here in New York.
And I'm not telling you where so you can't come
and find me, all right?
But I've bought a plot of land somewhere.
I'm building a house.
I've got a lot of spare land
and some of the squad are chucking up houses around.
Bit of a Brandi Carlile situation.
Brandi, love, you all right, babes?
I'm stealing your idea of the compound.
It's like the compound, this time more melanated.
And like (laughs), that's what we're doing.
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