Today, the multilingual, multinational world-pop artist Raissa releases a brand-new Spanish-language heater, “MANZANA” (co-written by Raissa and Evan Voytas), following the release of “GUAPA,” and her EP, Cute Threat.
Born in Spain, Raissa inherited a mastery of French and Spanish from her parents and a love of songwriting from Leonard Cohen. She spent her childhood between Beijing, Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, and London - as a result, she draws from a deep well of creative influences, everything from antique Gothic literature to vintage anime.
Raissa embodies the kind of bold contradictions that make for truly transcendent pop: she’s wildly inventive yet refined in musicality, sensitive yet self-possessed, fiercely intelligent yet deeply attuned to the sensory pleasures of melody and groove.
Raissa notes: “Manzana is inspired by the energy in the music of artists such as Celia Cruz and Caetano Veloso’s with my own spirit and spin. It is a celebration of life and of self, a recognition of life’s hardships and successes. I wanted to make a song in the tradition of the imaginary worlds often found in salsa and tropicalia. It’s about reaching for the stars while being anchored firmly to who we are inside. In the words of Celia Cruz “la vida es un carnaval y es más bello vivir cantando” // “Life is a carnival and it is more beautiful to live singing.”
Earlier, she released the music video for the track “Cute Threat” here on Neon Gold Records. Listen / download Raissa - Cute Threat EP
Last year, Raissa released “No Genius” featuring her close friend and collaborator Rahim Redcar aka Christine and the Queens. The collaboration is the latest in a long line of meaningful collabs and co-signs, including Mark Ronson, Mura Masa, and more. A singular pop storyteller whose honest lyrics, vibrant soundscapes, and unique visual storytelling exhibit her artistry.
Raissa bio:
A creative force unlike any other in music today, Raissa embodies the kind of bold contradictions that make for truly transcendent pop: she’s wildly inventive yet refined in musicality, sensitive yet self-possessed, fiercely intelligent yet deeply attuned to the sensory pleasures of melody and groove. Not only the outcome of her global upbringing—a journey that includes being born in Spain, then spending her childhood in Beijing, Sydney, and Kuala Lumpur—the Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter/producer’s potent originality stems from her limitless imagination and eclectic mix of influences (early-millennium hip-hop, ’80s art-pop, tropicália, West African dance music, and much more). Newly signed to Neon Gold Records, Raissa is now set to deliver a new body of work affirming the depth and power of her one-of-a-kind vision.
“In the past I’ve felt frustrated with the fact that I don’t fit neatly into any type of box—I belong to so many things, but at the same I belong to nothing,” says Raissa. “Now I’m finally starting to see that as a strength, and maybe the most important thing about me as a person and an artist.”
A multilingual talent whose lyrics shift from English to Spanish to French, Raissa partly attributes her near-encyclopedic knowledge of music to her parents, who raised her on pop iconoclasts like Prince and David Bowie and songwriter/poets like Leonard Cohen—an essential catalyst for her own musical development. “When I was 12 I watched a documentary about Leonard Cohen, and he talked about how he’d started writing songs after learning to play just a few chords on guitar,” she recalls. “I thought, ‘That doesn’t sound so hard,’ and then I started writing songs too.” After teaching herself GarageBand at age 14, Raissa began self-recording and quickly amassed a sizable but entirely secret stash of songs. “At the time I was living in Malaysia and didn’t know anyone who’d even attempted to make music, so the idea of turning it into something bigger seemed impossible,” she explains. Upon heading to London for art school at 19, however, Raissa felt an overwhelming need to take her music to the next level. “I was alone in this big city and felt really low, and music became a lifeline,” she says. “I started making music with a friend just for fun, and then one day I randomly uploaded a song to SoundCloud.” By the next morning, that track had surpassed 20,000 streams—a turn of events that caught the attention of several established producers looking to collaborate, and soon found her flying out to L.A. to set her music career in motion.
Since making her debut with the tender but unapologetic 2020 single “BULLYING BOYS,” Raissa has continually turned out songs that match their exquisitely detailed and high-energy sound with lyrics that subtly transform our perception of the world—a dynamic in full effect on her new EP Cute Threat. Mainly co-produced by Raissa and her longtime creative partner Evan Voytas, her debut project for Neon Gold encompasses everything from the tongue-in-cheek swagger of its title track to the raw catharsis of “No Genius”: a galvanizing collaboration with Rahim Redcar (aka Christine and the Queens), built on gorgeously strange beats and Raissa’s hot-tempered but hypnotic outpouring of frustration. “That song came from thinking about how the most powerful entities in the world profit from creating division among the most vulnerable,” says Raissa, who refers to “No Genius” as “some tough love for myself and my fellow human.”