Interview: Raissa

Words & Photos by Giovanni Zuniga

June 25, 2023 — Raissa, born to a Spanish mother and a French-Algerian Father, discusses her biggest influences, her decision to sing in multiple languages, all the places she calls home in her heart, and the importance of retaining hope and remaining vulnerable in this interview with Melophile Media.

Raissa: Should I Stop eating <laughs>?

Giovanni: No, you're fine. I'm gonna transcribe it so you can eat it. You’re okay to keep crunching.

Raissa: Okay. Crunch. Crunch <laughs>.

Giovanni: So your (artist) name is Raissa? Is that your real name or-

Raissa: That’s my real name. That's on my passport. I don't have a middle name or anything. That's my only name.

Giovanni: And where are you from?

Raissa: My mom's Spanish. I was born in Spain and my dad's French and Algerian. But I moved a lot growing up. I lived mainly in Malaysia, in Kuala Lumpur. I lived there for like, almost 10 years.

Giovanni: How long have you been doing music?

Raissa: Full-time professionally, probably since I was 21.  I was a student, so it's hard to tell. The lines are a bit blurry. There was no official date, but I've been making music since I started writing songs when I was 12. Like when I was a pre-teen and I kind of went through high school and started producing music on my laptop, on garageband and it all snowballed.

Giovanni: So you say you started at 21. How old are you now?

Raissa: 26.

Giovanni: Five years? How do you feel it's been going?

Raissa: It's up and down. Dedicating your life to something that feels like a calling, it can kind of sometimes be good and sometimes not as good. And figuring that out. Also, Covid was a really confusing time. I moved in the middle, I moved here in the middle of Covid.

Giovanni: Where to where?

Raissa: From London. I've been here [LA] for two years. I would say the time in which I've actually been doing it professionally, full-time, has been the last two years, but I've been trying to do it full-time for the previous three before that. Okay. If that makes sense. I (mean) I made music for a long time before I ever put any music out. I put out my first song in January of 2020. Right before lockdown. Right before the pandemic became like this international thing.

Giovanni: How do you think the response is now that you've put out the music in the last three years?

Raissa: I moved here because of a record deal and then it just wasn't the right situation for me. And I left that record deal. And then I parted ways with my old manager and I just got a new manager. In that in-between period I was kind of reassessing a lot of things and trying to figure it out.

My experience with my record label really confused me as to what I actually care about. And so I needed a moment to kind of get back to why I wanted to be a musician in the first place and why I wanted to do the things.

I'd had these things put in my head that I actually didn’t actually care about and they were distracting me from what I feel is actually important.

Giovanni: What did you find out that you (actually) cared about?

Raissa: I care about being honest. I care about not being scared to be vulnerable. I care about making things that are of quality and not just chasing a trend or chasing after something because it looked like it worked out for someone (else).

There's a lot of pressure at major record labels to have a viral TikTok moment. And these things (don’t) make me feel like an artist.

I'm not an influencer. And I (was) peeling away these layers of pressure that I was putting on myself that was distracting me from making work. I want to be proud of work that I feel reflects who I am; work that I feel is honest. 

I feel like sometimes when you feel pressured to kind of follow a trend or do some kind of gag to get attention, it cheapens the thing that you actually have set out to do.

It's not like I'm worried what other people think, but you're kind of betraying yourself a little bit. 

What's important to me is that I don't betray myself.

Giovanni: You sing in Spanish too?  Is there a reason why? 

Raissa:  I speak Spanish at home. I don't speak English at home. I speak Spanish with my mom and French with my dad. Spanish is a part of my life. I don't think it was a conscious (decision) like, oh, now I'm gonna make music in Spanish. It was a natural part of my life and a natural part of who I am. It's not the whole picture, but it's part of the picture.  I'm actually singing two songs in Spanish tonight. One new thing that I wrote and that isn't out yet and a cover. And I feel like it honors where I'm from and how I grew up.

I actually had someone recently ask why don't you record only in Spanish? But that would also not be who I am.  Because that's not how I grew up. There are parts of me that feel Spanish and there are parts of me that feel French and there are parts of me that feel Malaysian and there are parts of me that feel like there's space for all of that (in) the music that I make.

Giovanni: Who influences you the most?

Raissa: Musically?

Giovanni: Well you can say.

Raissa: Honestly, I think David Bowie and Prince are two really big ones because my mom is a really big fan of both of them. I guess in a way my mom has been a massive influence for me because the music she was interested in was what I would hear in the car growing up. Both my parents are big music fans, but I would spend a lot more time with my mom during the week and she would play Prince and Bowie and Fleetwood Mac in the car. I think my influence, my musical influences came from my mom.

So I guess my mom's my biggest influence.

Giovanni: Are you based in LA?

Raissa: Yeah, I've been in Los Angeles for two.

Giovanni: And what do you think?

Raissa: It's good? There are things about it that I love and things that I don't love. I think LA's been a place that's really forced me to confront myself and become a good friend to myself. Yeah. It's a tough industry that can make you really doubt yourself.

Giovanni: What place do you call home?

Raissa: That's tough. I would say the place that feels most like home is probably Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I haven't been back since before the pandemic, but I'm hoping to go back for Christmas this year and see all my friends. Some of my friends have had babies and gotten married and all of that.

Giovanni: Do you see any running themes in your work?

Raissa:  I think the biggest themes in my work are hope and forgiveness. Forgiving myself for being human, forgiving other people for being human and expressing the desire that I think we all have for love. You know, I think every human being desires just to love and be loved. And  sometimes that gets confusing and comes out in weird ways.

Giovanni: Are there any lyrics specifically where this theme comes out? 

Raissa: Well, the song that I'm playing is Bullying Boys. And I guess it has a lot of themes in that I’m trying to-

(Sings)

Well you might be the greatest of all time. 

You'll never see that. 

I know you’re there 

Let me sugarcoat it

There's a poem by Charles Bakowski called the Bluebird-

Giovanni: -bluebird in my heart-

Raissa: -(That wants) to get out.

Yeah, exactly. 

This idea that there's this inner child or this vulnerable happy, joyful, fragile thing inside of you, inside of everyone, and that he needs to keep it in this cage. So I'm referencing that point that there is this greatness but (I’ll) pretend it's not there because if you're honest that it's there you feel like you might get hurt. But recognizing that it's there and then the next verse is:

I know, I know it's there the way my real heart is.

Let me sugar coat it. 

You know the truth of things and the desire to be vulnerable, but feeling afraid of putting yourself out there, but still being hopeful enough that you'll kind of talk about it in a -

Giovanni: Song. And do you think you can be vulnerable on stage?

Raissa: Yeah, I feel the most vulnerable on stage. Really. Out of any situation, I feel the most vulnerable on stage.

Giovanni: Is there a specific reason? 

Raissa: I don't know how to have any wolves when I'm on stage and I kind of have to surrender to what's going (on) There's very limited amount of control you have on stage and you either try and have control and that gets in the way or I can surrender and I'm gonna be vulnerable. You know, someone might hate it, someone might like it. I don't know. Anything could happen. Most of the time people are nice <laughs>, but anything could happen and I just have to be okay with that possibility.

Giovanni: Is there anything else you want to add that maybe I didn't ask or something that maybe you would like to add?

Raissa: The last few years have been really tough for a lot of people and I think it's important not to lose hope. That's not really specific to me or my music, but I do think it's something that's kind of a motivating force for me is this idea of not losing hope and giving other people an opportunity to not lose hope. So yeah, don't, don't lose hope <laughs> don't lose hope, guys.