Pop

British singer Yola has signed with S-Curve Records and returns with her first new music in three years today (Sept. 19) with “Future Enemies.” 
The song, the live video of which premieres below, is a spiky tale, delivered in Yola’s inimitably rich vocals, about a relationship that she pre-emptively calls quits on before it can turn sour. Expanding beyond her rootsy, groove-laden past songs like “I Don’t Wanna Lie,” “Diamond Studded Shoes” and “Faraway Look,” “Future Enemies” combines synth-driven electronica with R&B and dance vibes and signals a new musical direction for the six-time Grammy nominee. Yola wrote and produced the song with Sean Douglas and Zach Skelton.

“There is a moment when you realize you’re not going to get on with someone. They haven’t noticed yet, so you have a unique opportunity to disappear from their lives before they ever realize you were destined to be enemies. It’s a luxury to not have an endless supply of negative memories about someone ‘cause you never made them,” Yola says in a statement about the song. “I choose to save my time for situations, spaces and people that have no ticking timer of inevitable doom because they don’t see me or center a reality that does not serve me or my wellbeing. Of course, when you’re a woman, culturally black (as well as physically black), dark skinned (and feminine in energy), plus size (and willfully main character in energy), from a whole different continent and living in the West, let’s say you’re going to have to be both vigilant and choosy in life, in love [and] in work.”

Trending on Billboard

Yola’s new direction draws from her past as part of London’s Broken Beats scene that extended from the mid-1990s to the late 2000s and of which she was a part as a member of electronic collective Bugz in the Attic. It’s reflected in “Future Enemies” and her new EP, My Way, out Nov. 15. The EP also draws on her love of various R&B eras, including ‘70s soulful pop and ‘90s neo soul, while thematically exploring creative autonomy and even historic movements, including the Windrush Generation of immigrants who came from Caribbean countries to the U.K. after WWII through 1973. 

“I’ve been purposefully hinting about this direction for years. From covering Soul II Soul for Apple Music to my covers on tour and reworkings of my songs, the broad church of soul music through the ages has always been the narrative,” she says. “I’ve covered Yarborough and Peoples’ ‘Don’t Stop the Music’ as a throwback nod to my time with Bugz In The Attic (we used to cover that song).

“This time I’m exploring my love of soul music through influences like Chaka Kahn, Janet Jackson, Sade, Prince, Minnie Riperton and various luminaries of rare groove and progressive RnB,” She continues. “Layering programming and synths with organic instrumentation is at the core of the sonic landscape, and as usual I have metabolized these elements into a concoction very much of my own.”

“For the past few years, Yola has been one of my favorite contemporary artists,” said Steve Greenberg, founder/CEO of  S-Curve Records, in a statement. “So, when I learned she’d fulfilled her previous recording commitments [with Easy Eye Records], we jumped at the opportunity to sign her to S-Curve. The music she’s been recording for this new project is classic Yola, yet she expands her musical palette by incorporating funk and late 80’s R&B influences in a very natural way. It’s an exciting evolution and I think her new music will delight Yola’s long-time fans, while simultaneously bringing lots of new listeners into the fold.  We’re ready to do everything we can to help Yola build this next phase of her career.”

Yola, who is currently starring in Hadestown on Broadway as Persephone through mid-October, is managed by Range Media Partners and booked by Wasserman.

For years in her 20s, Lady Gaga says she was constantly asked if she was a man. A strange question, to be sure, but one the singer, 38, says she faced with certainty and a sense of humor. In the second episode of the new Netflix series What’s Next? The Future with Bill Gates, the singer explained to the billionaire Microsoft co-founder that she never bothered to refute the rumors.
“When I was in my early 20s there was a rumor that I was a man,” Gaga told Gates. “I went all over the world. I traveled for tours and for promoting my records and almost every interview I sat in — there was this imagery on the internet that had been doctored — they were like, ‘There’s rumors that you’re a man. What do you have to say about that?’”

The explanation tells you everything you need to know about Gaga and why she’s been such an ally to the LGBTQ+ community for her entire career, as well as a beacon for Little Monsters who don’t fit into society’s preconceived notions. “The reason why I didn’t answer the question is because I didn’t feel like a victim with that lie and I thought: What about a kid who is being accused of that who would think that a public figure like me would feel shame?,” Gaga said.

Trending on Billboard

“I’ve been in situations where fixing a rumor was not in the best interest of the well being of other people. In that case, I tried to be thought provoking and disruptive in another way. I tried to use the misinformation to create another disruptive point,” she explained.

The singer who stars as Harley Quinn in the upcoming Joker sequel Joker: Folie à Deux (Oct. 4) brushed off a question about the rumor in an 2011 interview with Anderson Cooper in 2011, telling the anchor, “Why the hell am I going to waste my time and give a press release about whether or not I have a penis? My fans don’t care and neither do I.” 

To be fair, Gaga said she got used to “lies being printed about me since I was 20-years-old. I’m a performer. I think it’s kind of funny.” This, you might recall, is the chin-up style of the same artist who recently responded to an old Facebook group titled “Stafani Germanotta, you will never be famous,” created by some ex-classmates from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts who mocked her dreams of stardom a few years ago.

The 13-time Grammy winner and Oscar winner got the last laugh, of course, commenting on the hate she endured early in her career: “Some people I went to college [with] made this way back when. This is why you can’t give up when people doubt you or put you down — gotta keep going.”

Moving right along, after the upcoming release of the anticipated second turn by Oscar-winner Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker, Gaga will be gearing up to release the first single from her untitled seventh album. She recently revealed that the album is due out in February, with the untitled first listen due out in October.

In the meantime, Gaga recently scored a third week at No. 1 on the Billboard Global Charts with her Bruno Mars collab “Die With a Smile.”

Watch Gaga on What’s Next here.

Gwen Stefani is ready to bloom! The superstar revealed on Wednesday (Sept. 18) that her fifth studio album, Bouquet, will be arriving on November 15. She also unveiled the album’s cover art and track list. The photo features Stefani in a cowboy hat and a brown plaid suit, laying across a bed while holding a […]

Christina Aguilera has two kids of her own, but she’s claiming Sabrina Carpenter as her third. In a new TikTok shared by the “Genie in a Bottle” singer, the two pop stars are hanging out — or perhaps on a “mom-daughter” date. In the clip, the “Espresso” musician lip-synchs to an audio snippet seemingly from […]