missy ol and a brown

How to modestly undersell a new artist when everything about them warrants a shout across the rooftops? Frankly, it isn't easy, because by simply stating all that YolanDa Brown has achieved over these past few years in music - and she has done so entirely under her own steam - it really is difficult not to wander into the path of hyperbole. So let us start by asserting that YolanDa Brown is a one-off, very much a woman of her time, and one of the precious few truly independent artists whose DIY ethic hasn't hindered the progress of her career but instead has laid the kind of foundations that could endure for decades.
As much entrepreneur as she is musician, as much gifted singer-songwriter as she is the UK's premier saxophonist, this is a young lady with an entrepreneurial bent who, in 2012, is going to make a considerable mainstream splash, her name in lights at last.
After several years on the jazz circuit, not just London's jazz circuit but, as we shall see, the world's, she is now poised to release her debut album, April Showers, May Flowers, that will surely see her cult reputation brought to the fore. This is an album of effortless unfurling grace and impeccable soulful poise. It is the product of a two-time MOBO Award winner who knows exactly what she is doing, and precisely how to do it.
"People often ask me what my target audience is," she says. "Thing is, when I look out into the audience at my shows, I can't really tell. I see all sorts: all ethnicities, all ages, either sex. So really, I guess, I'm making music for everyone." She smiles broadly. "I mean, why limit yourself?"
She was born in Barking in the early 1980s. Her father was in advertising, her mother a head teacher. By six, she was already something of a musical prodigy. Her first instrument was the piano, but, never much caring for the theoretical side, she gradually lost interest, and gravitated instead to the violin, and then the drums. The next few years saw a fleeting interest in several more instruments, the oboe and the recorder among them. But by 13 she had settled for the saxophone, with which she felt most comfortable, and also most naturally inclined towards - so much so, that she refused her parents' offer of lessons, and simply did precisely what it is that defines all musical prodigies: she taught herself.
"I'm not sure why the saxophone of all instruments appealed to me the most," she muses, "but I just felt at home with it. I love the music it made."
By her mid-teens, it was clear to both her and her parents that music was what she would go on to pursue in life, but, unlike so many musicians who get the bug early, her pursuit did not come at the cost of her education. Quite the contrary: she juggled both. A head girl in comprehensive school in her native East London, she sailed through her GCSEs and A-levels, and gained a First in her operations management degree, before gaining two Masters in the subject . After a year studying in Spain, she came back not only even more versed in the world of business, but also fully bilingual.
A career in management consultancy beckoned, but YolanDa resisted.
"I simply couldn't imagine spending my life inside an office," she says. "Music was still my overriding love, and as long as I could pay the rent, I was going to pursue it for all I was worth."
This she did with impressive industry. Playing live as much as she could over the next few years, she quickly gained a reputation for herself - to the extent that, in 2008, she won a MOBO for Best Jazz, and then again in 2009. She played sax with everyone from Alexander O'Neal to Mica Paris, Soweto Kinch to The Temptations, and released two lovingly crafted EPs. She began increasingly to tour further afield - in the US, in Italy and Spain - and for 18 months even hosted her own talk show on Sky.
And through it all, she kept up with her studies, pursuing a Ph.D. in Management Science at the University of Kent.
"I remember just about to go on stage in Rome one time, and sending off my dissertation to my supervisor at the same time," she says. "It was pretty difficult to sustain sometimes."
And so in January 2010, she decided to put her PhD on hold, "though I will return to it," she promises. "I just wanted to concentrate on my album; a tricky decision to make, but, I felt, the right one."
Music fans would likely agree. April Showers, May Flowers is a beautifully sculpted record that touches lightly on jazz and soul and R&B, each track bestowed with the kind of lyrical insight - on love, on life - that suggests its author is something of a poet, too.
Her smile returns. "I've been writing poetry ever since I was a kid, it's true," she admits. "In fact, when I played these songs to friends, a lot of them commented on just how many words I'd crammed into them!
Though YolanDa has been courted by several major record labels over the years - and continues to be happy to meet with any label that shows both interest and initiative - she is in many ways perfectly positioned to remain entirely self-sufficient. Perhaps it is her business studies background, perhaps her tireless workrate and self-motivation, but in an era where those who do exist independently can struggle, she continues to somehow take giant steps.
After her MOBOs success, for example, she was invited to play before the President of Russia at the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg ("I played them some jazz but also introduced them to reggae; they loved it!"), as well as travelling to Jamaica to perform for the country's Prime Minister.
She has been listed in the Evening Standard as one of the top 30 black students in the UK (as selected by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown), and now increasingly works within the charity sector, as ambassador for both the Prince's Trust and the Yamaha Class Band, an initiative that visits schools in underprivileged areas encouraging children to pick up an instrument. "It's amazing the confidence it brings them," she says. "They really come to life."
She is also currently backing Plan UK's Because I Am A Girl campaign, and is a patron of the Mayor of London's Fund for Young Musicians.
There is, dizzyingly, yet more: last year she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Arts by the University of East London, and in 2011 was invited to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace. She went, had tea, and a lovely time.
Yolanda is also one of very few artists to be endorserd by globally recognised brands such as Guess Jeans, MAC Cosmetics, Yamaha and Addidas.
"For such big companies to endorse an independent artist like myself is really humbling," she says, "and I believe that the work we do together is mutually beneficial." She giggles. "And I do happen to love MAC Cosmetics…"
It is pretty superfluous here, then, to suggest that in the last decade on the peripheries of mainstream music, YolanDa has achieved more than most artists would in a lifetime. That much is obvious.
But she hasn't finished yet.
How many "unknown" artists do you know can fill the Hammersmith Apollo over two nights? This is where YolanDa will be launching April Showers, May Flowers in February, with special guests Omar, Mica Paris and Jacqui Dankworth, and extra special guests, the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra. These will be special evenings.
"It is a risk," she says, conceding that hiring the Royal Philharmonic isn't exactly cheap, "but then you have to take risks in life. That's why I'm here now, because I invest in what I believe in. We may not have the mechanics of a record label, but we can use what we know, our business acumen, to push things forward in the hope of reaching as wide an audience as we possibly can.
"And the idea now," she continues, "is that if the February shows go well, then we'll be able to do similar shows with similar orchestras right across the world."
Is there nothing this woman can't do?
She shrugs. "Well, you can do everything yourself these days - if you know how to."
YolanDa Brown knows how to.