Is it weird for a debut album to win nominations for Best Americana Album, Best American Roots Song and Best American Roots Performance… when the artist isn’t actually American? Probably.

OK. Definitely.

But Yola revels in being one-of-a-kind because in her case, it’s been a long time coming.

“[London producers] said nobody wants to hear a Black woman sing rock. They kept telling me, all of them, to stay in my place,” she told Rolling Stone. Typical. It sounded a lot like the bullying Yola grew up with as the first-generation British child of Barbadian and Ghanaian immigrants. “From 5 to 10, you don’t know how many times [other kids] kicked my ass for the color of my skin,” she remembers. “We were isolated.” The details of Yola’s early life and career read like a dastardly plan to keep her down. Unsupportive family members, homelessness, vocal cord nodules, professional recording setbacks, and the general life rubbish that Black women don’t have the privilege of avoiding, all threatened to bring Yola’s hopes crashing down.

So she literally reinvented herself. She was born Yolanda Quartey, but in 2013, she chose Yola Carter. Not a huge change, but sometimes that’s all it takes. “Carter” was inspired by THE Carters, Jay-Z and Beyoncé, in manifestation of a Black musical empire. And though it wasn’t the way she anticipated, her naming ritual worked because almost simultaneously Black Keys guitarist Dan Auerbach was hearing Yola’s music for the first time. He signed her immediately.

And if you’re hearing her for the first time here, settle in friend, because you’re definitely going down the rabbit hole. And what better place to start than with another eccentric Brit? I know… a Brit singing Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” probably sounds pretty played out. But you know me better than that, and I guarantee you’ve never heard anything close to Yola’s take on it.

Watch the video and you’ll know RIGHT AWAY that NOTHING about Yola’s “Yellow Brick Road” is what you’d expect. It’s animation elevated to avant-garde art, opening with an African goddess plummeting to Earth, transitioning with trippy mandalas, and sprinkling tons of global cultural, mythological and celestial imagery (phasing moons, owls, butterflies, lions/griffons, kente patterns) throughout. It’s a pretty amazing visual statement to accompany her spirited vocals in a song about deviating from the path laid out by others in favor of living free.

And not that she needed anyone’s approval to totally blow up this classic, but Sir Elton himself so loved Yola’s cover that he personally premiered it on his radio show, telling listeners “you’ll be delighted at what you hear.” But don’t take his word for it. Watch and listen to “Yellow Brick Road” yourself, go find all the Yola, and keep an eye out for her silver screen premiere as Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrmann’s “Elvis” just four days from now.

“The privilege I get to transmit this message of rock and roll, and the diaspora’s ownership of this genre, along with everything that it gave birth to, that gives me life,” she told Variety Magazine. Probably doesn’t hurt that she also gets to hand the music industry what she calls “the ultimate ‘fuck you’:” appearing before a global audience as not only a Black woman singing rock, but THE Black woman who CREATED rock.

Lovely to see Yola following the time-honored teachings of the wise sage who once said “the best revenge is your paper.”

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