Rev. Yolanda

Rev. Yolanda (she/her/hers)- trans femme gender queer actor/singer/songwriter/interfaith minister... aka Roger Anthony (Tony) Mapes is a 2015 inductee into The Blues Hall of Fame and 2015/ 2014 recipient of The MAC Award (Manhattan Association of Cabarets and Clubs). An accomplished, award-winning singer/songwriter, performance artist, and Interfaith Minister, Yolanda was born as Roger Anthony Mapes (nicknamed "Tony") in Muscle Shoals, Alabama -The Hit Recording Capital of The World. Tony joined his first band, Stained Glass Bluegrass, when he was only 17 years old. At age 28, "Tony Mapes" moved to New York City and began exploring theatre and performance art in the 80's East Village arts scene. During this exploration he met The Radical Faeries in NYC and moved to a Radical Faerie Community in Vermont. It was during this time that Yolanda -trans femme gender queer- was truly born (1993) ! Yolanda developed a loyal following in Vermont with her original musical blend of rock, pop, country and jazz with her band Yolanda & The Plastic Family and celebrated the release of her first CD Welcome To Yolanda World . In 1999 Yolanda was invited to be a regular performer at CBGB's new Queer music night "Homocorps". In 2001 Yolanda moved back to NYC. She rocked the downtown scene in NYC performing at Meow Mix, CBGB's, Webster Hall, The Duplex, Sidewalk Cafe, and The Cutting Room. In 2003 Yolanda was awarded OutMusician of the Year , and recorded a critically acclaimed solo cover of the ABBA tune "Lay All Your Love on Me" on the Abbalicious CD (FigJam Records).

Yolanda was inducted into the GLBT Hall of Fame for Activism, Art Excellence and Community Awareness in 2005. It was around this time that Yolanda began a spiritual journey which led her to One Spirit Interfaith Seminary where she became Rev. Yolanda, an ordained Interfaith Minister in June of 2011. That same year the song "I Wanna Know" from her CD House of Joy made it to #1 on the OutVoice Music Charts and "Love Divine" was included on a special first edition collection of GLBT Christian singer/songwriters.

Rev. Yolanda's Old Time Gospel Hour -the live, autobiographical Gospel Music show was realized in January of 2014 and awarded with a MAC Award. She also released another album-Country Gospel Kirtan. "Home" from that album was voted the #1 song of 2013 on the OutVoice Music Charts.

Rev. Yolanda has also been seen on HBO''s "High Maintenance", "Family Stories" for the Discovery Channel playing Vivian Wheeler (the current Guiness Book of World Record-holder for bearded lady), and a feature film about her life by director Ike Allen released in 2015. Since 2015 Rev. Yolanda has a recurring series regular roles on 3 web-series "Skeleton Crew", "The Art of Blowing It", Demon Doctor", as well as recorded 4 more CD's of music: Yolanda.net/audio