FEATURE: Spotlight: YEИDRY — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Russo Jaquez for Pitchfork

YEИDRY

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ONE reason why the music media is…

PHOTO CREDIT: Davide De Martis (DeFuntis)

so important in the current time is so one can discover incredible new artists. In this case, I was reading an interview on the Pitchfork website. They were speaking with a phenomenal artist, YEИDRY. I had not heard of her - though I have gone back and listened to her music. Not only is her music sensational. Hearing about YEИDRY’s story, ancestry and hearing her talk about her career is deeply fascinating. I am going to bring in a few features to illustrate and illuminate one of the most engaging and promising artists coming through. Before coming to an interview, this article introduces us to an artist who defies convention and easy comparisons:

“Describing Yendry as the new Rosalía or the new Jorja Smith would be a far too reductive of an approach. Her personal history, background and relationship to music are simply her own. Yendry Fiorentino was born in 1993 in Santo Domingo. When she was three, her parents moved to Turin, Italy. She grew up watching her heroes on MTV: TLC, Destiny’s Child, Michael Jackson… Thus she benefited from a triple culture: Italian, Dominican and American.

As an adult, she started working as a fashion model, but music never left her mind, and in 2012, she took part in the Italian X Factor, reaching the final. The artists whose songs she covered in this competition show her influences: Lana Del Rey, Alicia Keys, Janelle Monáe… Powerful female singers who write their own songs, which is exactly what Yendry has become known in her solo career – before she stepped out on her own , she was the singer in the electronic Italian band Materianera.

In December 2019, Yendry unveiled the video for ‘Barrio’, her first official single. More songs have followed: ‘Nena’ (which has one million views on YouTube), ‘El Diablo’ and ‘Se Acabó’ (ft. Mozart La Para). On her website, her manifesto for El Diablo sums up her intentions:

“Women historically have been described as evil in literature, cinematography and music. […] In the song, the character of a strong, confident, independent woman challenges stereotypes such as The Trophy Wife, The Gold Digger, The Housewife, The Barbie Doll. In the video, Yendry wanted to reverse these stereotypes and show her sexual and social freedom”.

I am writing this on 19th June; it will not be published until later in the month. Maybe YEИDRY will put out new music by the time this is live. There is a lot of excitement and anticipation regarding a possible album from the rising talent. I think YEИDRY’s lineage and her roots feeds into her music. It is so much more layered and immersive than other artists. A strong and multicultural musician, I feel we will hear a lot more of YEИDRY. There are a few interviews and features about YEИDRY. I want to bring in a couple that teach us more about her music and background.

The first interview is from Harper’s Bazaar. They discussed Yendry’s musical influences and when she came to realise that music was her career path:

“Tell me about your journey into music. Why was this something you knew you wanted to do?

I think like a lot of people, I got in contact with music when I was a kid through my parents, because they were listening to a lot of music in my house. There has always been a lot of music, and it was two different sides. On one side, there was salsa, bachata, merengue, and reggaeton. On the other side, there was Michael Jackson and Barbra Streisand and Whitney Houston, that world. I grew up with this and watching MTV. I've always sang, and I've always danced to the music, and I've always felt it.

Who were the influences you looked to?

Of course, when you grow up, you start to have your own tastes in music. For me, I was a kid, and it started with, obviously, TLC and Destiny's Child, that world. But then, it kind of became a more personal research for what I really felt. I think Frank Ocean and J Paul were two artists that I was like, "Oh, this is something different. This makes me feel different." And then, I started to follow James Blake. From there, I started to listen to Radiohead and Massive Attack, and try to find out more music, more alternative music, if you want to call it like that.

Many of your music videos are filmed in the Dominican Republic, and you'll showcase your old neighborhood and the very street your house was on. Was that a conscious creative decision for you?

I feel like I'm a little bit mysterious on social media. People don't really know where I am, where I live sometimes, and this is something I'm improving with. At the same time, they don't really know my stories. Even if I have a song out with like "Nena," even if I explain it in interviews and stuff, new listeners—I like to refer to them like that—they don't really know your stories. They just come up after that, and they're like, "Oh, I like this song, 'Nena.' What's this about?" I'm going to have to explain it, and explain it a lot.

I felt like I wanted to give something, and I wanted to tell my story, and I wanted my mom, my family, my grandma to be part of this, and I wanted it to go back to the place where I was born. When I was there, I was like, "You know what? I'm going to develop this video for the song, and do it and film it in my neighborhood." Because I felt the support from them. Everyone was helping from the speakers to my cousins. I have something like 40 cousins. They were helping me with everything. I worked with a stylist from the Dominican Republic. The brands were all Dominicans. I wanted to do something that was impactful there.

We didn't prepare anything. We just got there [in Herrera] and everyone was going crazy, because I was there with Mozart La Para, who is super big, super respected. The kids were going crazy. I feel like I gave something to the people there.

My taste in music, it took a different direction right now. That's why when people ask me for my influences, I'm like, "Okay, this is really hard, because I really listened to a lot of things." This morning, I was listening to Thundercat, and yesterday night, I was listening to Gloria Estefan. It's vast. My influence is big”.

It is time to come to the Pitchfork interview. It is a wonderfully interesting read. I would urge people to have a look, as one learns so much about YEИDRY. There are a few sections that I want to bring in now:

“Yendry has spent the better part of the last year working on her debut album in Latin America and in Miami, where she recently moved. She has five solo singles to her name thus far, and they all showcase her artful, slow-burning elegance. Her songs are delicate deconstructions of pop, R&B, reggaeton, flamenco, and beyond. No matter what genre she’s working with, or what she’s singing about—self-confidence, domestic abuse, failed relationships—Yendry exudes a coy playfulness and an untouchable aplomb. Listeners and fellow artists are taking notice—several of her videos have collected more than a million views, and over the past few months she’s posted Instagram photos in the studio with titans like Damian Marley and Afrobeats mainstay DJ Spinall.

She only recently returned to Italy, after her grandfather’s passing. She’s spent this time consoling her family, especially her grandmother, who slept in the same bed as her husband for 61 years. “We make her laugh; we make all her thinking about it pass,” Yendry says. “Sometimes, it still gets to her a little, but that’s normal.”

PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Russo Jaquez for Pitchfork

Yendry arrived in Turin when she was 4 years old. She was born in Santo Domingo and grew up in a small municipality on the outskirts of the city, surrounded by the Dominican Republic’s characteristic and colorful concrete homes, street vendors, and viejitos playing dominoes on the corner. When she was a baby, Yendry’s mother plucked feathers off chickens for a living, while her grandmother took care of her at home.

Yendry’s mother soon moved to Italy in search of better job opportunities but left her daughter behind. “She actually was like, ‘Hey, Mama is going. I’ll see you tonight,’ and then she left for one year,” Yendry chuckles. “That woman is not easy.” During those 12 months, Yendry fell ill. She had unexplainable fevers and a meager appetite. Her grandmother took her to doctors and spiritual healers to find out what was going on, but there didn’t seem to be anything physically wrong with her. “I think it was because of my mom,” she remembers. “I was too little to think about it as trauma.” Trauma is a topic that Yendry navigates with radical openness and honesty—a reserved wisdom that so many diaspora kids are forced to acquire.

PHOTO CREDIT: Jackie Russo Jaquez for Pitchfork

Her mom would take her to barbecues soundtracked by bachata and merengue, classic artists like Yoskar Sarante and Juan Luis Guerra. And there was Italian music, of course. In the summers, her family traveled to Puglia, the southern region that forms the heel of Italy’s boot. On these 12-hour trips to the sea, her grandparents would play kitsch Neapolitan icons like Nino D’Angelo and Gigi D’Alessio. “Italian music is super melodic,” she says. “They’re super dramatic as well. Super dramatic!”

Yendry began singing casually with her friends at school when she was around 15, but never performed in front of an audience until she became a contestant on the Italian version of X Factor in 2012, an experience she now describes as “50 percent bad, 50 percent good.” It taught her how to be on stage, but also how the industry is a business involving marketing and entertainment, not just music. “I had my taste in music, and they didn’t really get it,” she says. “I was listening to Massive Attack and Lana Del Rey, and they got me singing Dionne Warwick—which is good, but it was not really me. Also it’s like, ‘Of course you got the Black girl on TV singing Black music.’”

How do you navigate the marketing term “Latin artist”? You’ve said that it’s important for you to not just be understood under that label.

That’s a hard question! I feel like a Latin artist, but I also feel like a global artist. If I don’t see it that way, then all the sacrifices I’m making right now don’t make sense. Everything I’m investing in it, financially, in terms of time. I’m living in another country and I don’t have a house. I’m staying in hotels, [fighting] against COVID, and trying to be in the right place at the right time to catch opportunities.

I’m not just doing Latin music. I have influences from a lot of other stuff. If I take a salsa rhythm or a bachata rhythm, I still wanna feel free to sing in English on it, because I know English. I still wanna feel free to put a synthesizer on it because I love synthesizers. I don’t really want to put limits on my project.

Also it’s like, do we call American artists “English-speaking” artists? To me that says it all—that we need a label to define ourselves. I don’t want to put labels on myself, but I also understand that I need to somehow sell my music.

One of the topics you want to delve into more with your music is racism within Latino communities. Why is that so important to you?

Because I grew up in a Dominican family, I faced those problems personally, on different sides. I’ve had arguments with my family about saying stuff like, “Oh finally, we have a white president!” It’s like, “OK! Let’s start from the root! Why are you saying this?” And they’re like, “I don’t know.” It’s a lack of information and it’s something that’s so in the culture that they don’t really think about it. With my family, I always try to have these conversations at the table. I feel like it’s my responsibility. But that’s a really, really long conversation. It’s everywhere”.

I shall leave things here. Among a sea of rising artists, YEИDRY definitely offers something fresh and hugely memorable! I love her story and how determined and passionate she is. Keep an eye out on her social media channels for news of new music. On the evidence of what she has delivered to date, we are going to see her grow and move her way to the mainstream. I feel she will be around for many more years to come. The sensational YEИDRY is an artist that you..