Yola has delivered her first new music in three years, marking the start of a new creative era for the multi-talented artist. Today (Sept. 19), the singer-songwriter and actress delivered her fresh and captivating new single, “Future Enemies.”
The track finds Yola leaning into experimentation more than ever, staying true to her self-declared “genre-fluid” label. Alongside her familiarly commanding vocals, the British-born talent builds a surprising soundscape by folding in musical elements plucked from classic R&B, soul, pop, and the UK’s “broken beats” dance scene.
“You better believe / Whenever you think that you want it / Whenever you think that you want it / You don’t know, me,” she declares in the track’s punching, anthemic chorus. “You just think you want this future enemy.”
“There is a moment when you realise you’re not going to get on with someone,” Yola shares of the song’s theming in a statement. “They haven’t noticed yet, so you have a unique opportunity to disappear from their lives before they ever realise 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. ‘Why don’t we just not!’
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 centre 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 wilfully 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 in work. Oh and if you also want to be real, girl!!”
“Future Enemies” signals a sonic shift that she’s been “purposefully hinting about… for years,” which is at the core of her next project. Her upcoming EP, My Way, is due out on Nov. 15 and marks her first multi-track release via S-Curve Records.
“This time I’m exploring my love of soul music through influences like Chaka Khan, Janet Jackson, Sade, Prince, Minnie Riperton, and various luminaries of rare groove and progressive R&B,” explains Yola. “Layering programming and synths with organic instrumentation is at the core of the sonic landscape, and as usual I have metabolised these elements into a concoction very much of my own.”
Watch the official live performance video for “Future Enemies” below:
