The MOBO Award winning saxophonist talks to Premier.tv. YolanDa 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.