Yola has shared the title track of her upcoming album, Stand For Myself, which is set for release on July 30 via Easy Eye Sound. ‘Stand For Myself’ arrives with an accompanying video directed by Allister Ann. Watch it below.
“My school years were during the 90s and 00s, and Missy Elliott’s videos were always aesthetically superior to me,” Yola said of the video, adding, “I feel that the video is set in the antechamber to freedom. The feeling of escaping something truly oppressive and heading towards an unknown with a sense of hope and choice you haven’t felt in a long time. We all have the capacity to go through this process in our own minds, I kinda look like a superhero at times, but I’m not. I’m just a person trying to be free.”
‘Stand For Myself’ was co-written with Dan Auerbach (who also produced the album), Hannah V, and Natalie Hemby and features The McCrary Sisters on backing vocals. Yola explained:
The song’s protagonist ‘token,’ has been shrinking themselves to fit into the narrative of another’s making, but it becomes clear that shrinking is pointless. This song is about a celebration of being awake from the nightmare supremacist paradigm. Truly alive, awake and eyes finally wide open and trained on your path to self actualisation. You are thinking freely and working on undoing the mental programming that has made you live in fear. It is about standing for ourselves throughout our lives and real change coming when we challenge our thinking. This is who I’ve always been in music and in life. There was a little hiatus where I got brainwashed out of my own majesty, but a bitch is back.
Last month, Yola released the album’s lead single ‘Diamond Studded Shoes’.
