Yola hits out at former producer and label boss, The Black Keys’ Dan Auerbach, for “cookie-cutter bullshit”

nme.com:

Yola has dismissed her former producer and label boss Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys as “cookie-cutter bullshit”.The Bristol-born genre-bending singer released her first two albums, 2019’s ‘Walk Through Fire’ and 2021’s ‘Stand For Myself’, on Auerbach’s Easy Eye Sound label, but in a new interview, she has criticised her former collaborator’s artistic process.Speaking to Rolling Stone, she has said: “It’s cookie-cutter bullshit, is all it is.

It’s what they did in the old days: people have no agency. That was something that was celebrated, so I can see how people hold that up as a way to operate.

But it’s also a waste of my skill.”Yola has recently released her new EP ‘My Way’ on S-Curve Records, the title track of which she has described as a “diss track”.“This song is about when you’re trapped and you can’t just evaporate because you have to be in this space,” she said, without explicitly stating who the track is aimed at. “It’s about the levels of which I had to go through, mind gaming, after someone tried to mind game me.”“This song is really about how I really tried with someone: ‘I’m interested in you as a person and how you operate.

Let’s be collaborative. But you just can’t seem to not want to invoke the mammy paradigm, which is the plus-size Black woman who serves you at the sacrificing of herself.’”In addition to her own solo records, which have earned her six Grammy nominations, Yola has toured as a member of Massive Attack and written songs for Chase & Status and Katy Perry.