There would be no Yola without rock-and-roll architect Sister Rosetta Tharpe.
Now Yola gets to become her in Baz LuhrmannsElvis.
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Lets just take one thread we can ostensibly trace, Yola begins.
But she isnt losing sleep over the films slight depiction.
Then came a recording session with Luhrmann on Music Row in 2019.
So Im getting screen-tested already in the studio.
She wanted to know how hard it was.
The guitar was essential to Tharpes spiritual expression.
And you dont know that youre missing it, Yola says.
You dont know that you have an owner-ship over a legacy thats yours to have.
The cultural theft isnt vocalized in the film.
It doesnt have to be.
King serves as Elviss ear and Official Black Friend.
I wasnt aesthetically drawn to him as an artist to give enough of a fuck, she says.
Youre gonna experience Black shit if youre just around Black people, she says.
And America is enamored by Black stuff surprise, surprise.
She doesnt blame him alone for burying rocks roots.
The easy narrative is Hes the appropriator, she says.
No, the systems the fricking appropriator.
She gotlabeled a country star.
But she was still new to town then, and the success, she says, wasnt mine.
Except Yola knows better than most that it doesnt work like that.
Not everyone gets to be Elvis.
Fewer still could ever do what Tharpe did.
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