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RaiNao\u2019s latest album Marcri\u00e1<\/em> (Puerto Rican slang for being spoiled), has been brewing for a long time. \u201cIt started when I was 8 years old,\u201d the singer, whose real name is Naomi Ramirez Rivera, tells me over a recent video call. That year, her mother enrolled her in a specialized elementary school for the blind. \u201cI was one of the few sighted kids, and my mom said she put me there to help. That\u2019s where my whole sensory journey began\u2014learning how to live in the other ways that I saw my classmates living.\u201d Two decades later, she was finally ready to explore what those experiences meant to her. \u201cI started naming these sensory moments and from there we made the songs\u2014basically I tried to transport myself back to specific moments where there was a memory of a taste, a color, an emotion, tied to it\u2014and from there I started creating these arrangements.\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s an appropriate origin story for a record whose sounds are immediately transformative and obliquely reflective of what it\u2019s like to spend time in Puerto Rico, RaiNao<\/a>\u2019s homeland: there are mellow electronic beats with heavenly choruses that sound like spending time underwater while the waves crash above you, tambores and panderos that suddenly overflow into the subtle rhythms of salsa, groovy basslines that seductively emerge through the beats of plena, and even touches of jazz courtesy of RaiNao\u2019s own saxophone playing. It is a sensual exploration of island life simultaneously grounded in nostalgia and the lucha of daily life. Marcri\u00e1 <\/em>is a record to put on in the car when you drive back from a long day on the beach, with salty hair and sticky skin, tuning out as you look out the window at the trees and the sky and the clouds that dominate the landscape and let your thoughts wander to wherever it is they see fit.<\/p>\n And yet, musically, nothing is accidental. RaiNao is an exacting composer. \u201cWith these arrangements I was very specific about how I wanted my voice to sound, what instruments I wanted to hear,\u201d she explains, though that doesn\u2019t mean she wasn\u2019t open to experiments. \u201cIt was surprising how much of it came from the producers\u2019 minds, just letting ourselves get carried away by the sensory treatments and seeing what sounds we heard, what instruments called out to us.\u201d She works deliberately, there are no surplus of songs, and with her future collaborators in mind. Marcri\u00e1 <\/em>boasts an impressive roster of features, from legends of the Puerto Rican and Caribbean music scene like the reggae band Cultura Prof\u00e9tica, the salsa singer Andy Monta\u00f1ez, and the Cuban singer Omara Portuondo (who took part in the seminal Buena Vista Social Club<\/em> album). \u201cI\u2019ve been listening to Andy and Omara from the very beginning, so it\u2019s a dream to have them here, to immortalize their voices that are so important in the Caribbean,\u201d she says. While RaiNao can still technically qualify as an emerging artist, she also considers it important to cede space to other up-and-coming and independent musicians like Solo Fern\u00e1ndez, Matt Louis, and Frido Vargas, who all get their turn in the spotlight.<\/p>\n RaiNao first burst on the scene in 2022 with the release of her EP ahora A.K.A. Nao<\/em>, which caught the attention of Bad Bunny<\/a>, who invited her to perform on his slew of shows in Puerto Rico following the release of Un Verano Sin Ti; and <\/em>later asked her to collaborate on the song \u201cPERFuMITO NUEVO<\/a>,\u201d from last year\u2019s record-breaking Debi Tirar Mas Fotos.<\/em> Music was always part of her life\u2014her father is also a musician\u2014but she never thought she would have a career in music. \u201cI first discovered my voice at church, but it was not something I wanted to explore, I had a bit of stage fright,\u201d she recalls. She attended Puerto Rico\u2019s famous Escuela Libre de M\u00fasica where she studied the saxophone (\u201cI loved Lisa Simpson\u201d) and music theory, but still did not think to make it her focus once she got to college.\u201cI tried biology for a bit\u2014that didn\u2019t work out\u2014and then I studied film and theater at the Universidad de Puerto Rico. I always wanted to be an actress since I was a little girl and I really thought I would try to make a living out of it; but then as always music just slapped me in the face.\u201d Although there is an element of the cinematic in her music, she considers RaiNao to be an expression of herself rather than a character she has created. \u201cRaiNao helps me cancel my shyness a bit\u2014I think theater also helped me a lot in this aspect\u2014but I think it\u2019s me, just a better version of it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n