Why Yolanda Charles is Skipping the Traditional Album Rollout and Releasing “Acid Funk” Her Way

For decades, Yolanda Charles built a remarkable career as a session bassist, working with legendary artists like Mick Jagger, Eric Clapton, Paul Weller, Van Morrison, BB King, and Roger Daltrey. But in recent years, she has shifted her focus to her own music, culminating in the release of Acid Funk, her latest album with her band, Project pH.

Unlike traditional releases, Acid Funk is following an independent rollout strategy, starting with Bandcamp before expanding to vinyl and streaming services. Along the way, Charles launched her own record label, MAMAYO Records, ensuring she has full control over her music.

We caught up with Charles to discuss why she’s taking a different approach, how she’s engaging her audience, and what independent artists need to consider when releasing music today.

Acid Funk is out now on Bandcamp.

One of the things I wanted to ask you about the release strategy. You’re running your own label, is that right?

Yeah, my record label is just one of those things when you upload to the DSPs, the data streaming platforms, you have to kind of create a kind of almost like a fake record label. You don’t need to be registered to the company’s house in the UK or whatever. But if you want to get your registrations done properly, you kind of have to form a kind of ghost record label. Every artist has to do this and then register their IP with the correct PROs. I had a plan to start a record label anyway, so I just used one of my brand names from before, which is Mamma Yo Records. It’s actually the first name I used for one of my projects back in the early 2000s.

My focus around the record label isn’t very business structured yet, but it will be because I intend for that to be one of the arms of my businesses moving forward. Because you have to have a kind of record label when you upload, and if you want to protect your IP—your intellectual property—you should have it registered. Eventually, I’m going to register that as a business, a limited company, and then it’s going to become an actual record label properly.

As far as the actual release strategy, it is available right now through Bandcamp only and then it’s going to be released in May on vinyl and other digital platforms. Is that right?

That’s right, yeah. Right now we’re serving a community that knows who I am. Not necessarily fans, but I’d say people who found me through just picking up stuff online, people who know of me already. I have a decent amount of followers, it’s not massive, it’s across all platforms, accounting for double ups. I’ve probably got about 40K or so following me, which is healthy enough. Those people will have come across my content because they’re already following me. I haven’t been marketing towards building new fans and followers yet because I already have a healthy gigging career. My band gigs 20 times a year, something like that. So we’re already serving the community that knows who we are.

Bandcamp is really just to give them access to the record because they know who we are. We don’t have to do anything other than to tell them where it is and then they’re just buying it. Daily, I’m getting downloads and some CD sales, which is great. Thank you, everybody.

I think everybody’s release plan looks a little bit similar, but there are tweaks depending on how you want to roll these things out.

In my case, I’ve made the digital album available only on Bandcamp. You can stream and listen on Bandcamp, but only three tracks, so if you’re buying the album, you’re taking a punt on having heard three tracks only because you can’t listen to any of the others yet. You can order a CD and soon you’ll be able to pre-order an LP which will help pay for the LP pressing. Then our plan is to release another single in February. I’m working on the video and I’ve got a photo shoot tomorrow. That will then open up that track as a single download on Bandcamp. And it will also appear on the streaming platforms at that point, that single.

So there’ll only be two singles on the Spotify’s and Apple’s and all that. Then that’s going to happen again, another single, probably close to full release that will be again available digitally and on Bandcamp and then by about May on all formats everywhere.

The reason why I’m doing that is because I want to give the album a chance to sell physical copies to my actual fans, shall we say, or people who follow me. I think that it’s no criticism of people but when they can just click on something and just listen, they’re less likely to buy unless they become a real fan.

Now, the problem with that is that you can’t tell whether they need to learn to love the record before they want to invest in buying a physical, so there is an argument for letting them have it for free to listen, as in free, as in they only pay £10 a month to whoever. And then if they really come to love it over time, they’ll buy a CD.

And that’s definitely true, but I do think that there’s a certain amount of anticipation that people have about what’s coming next. “I really liked these three tracks. I really want to hear what the rest of the records sound like.”

We’re not selling huge numbers based on that, but I like the idea of people having a kind of heads-up because I would like the album’s reputation to spread between fans and friends. They talk about it, and then it’s a way of creating some form of loyalty and engagement with people who really feel like they were there at the beginning and they helped to raise its profile. I really like that because that’s how it used to be when I was young.

I’m seeing really, really straightforward before and after moments when it comes to visuals.

If you put music out and you do not have visuals, you get far, far, far, far less engagement. Obviously, right? But people just put loads of music up on the streaming platforms constantly. They would do much better to put less music up and really spend a bit of time and money maybe on creating visuals to go with those.

The visuals drive a hell of a lot of engagement with people. That’s why we’re releasing so few, because I’m trying to make sure that each track has been given a life. It’s not supposed to be consumed quickly and then move on to the next thing. It’s supposed to grow on you. You get to know it. You maybe learn the lyrics. You start to really get in there with the engagement. Then you’re going to want to buy a bit of memorabilia: a CD, a T-shirt, or come to a gig.

So it’s a slow growth thing and I’m patient, so it’s cool.

Be sure to check out part 1 of our interview.