Combining warm soulfulness with late-night jazz-inspired vocals, Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez’s musical approach has a unique heart and sensitivity. Her compositions have both sophistication and an emotional pull that leave listeners engaged and sighing. Based in New York City, she’s constantly redefining her sound while remaining true to her musical vision. In the midst of releasing a trilogy of songs –”Who Is She?”, “Like I See You”, and “The Healing” – Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez spoke about her family’s influence on her career path, her inspirations, and what she means when she says that art “happens in the crevices.”
Sofar: How did you decide to become a musician?
Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez: Both of my parents are musicians, and my brother produces my music. We’re like blacksmiths or woodworkers, it’s the family craft. Both my brother and myself found our own way to music but we were always surrounded by it. It’s a blessing.
You mention improvisation is a very important part of your process. How does it come into play?
I’m a bottom up believer, I let things show themselves. I’m devoted to periods of playing and exploration. It’s about playfulness and the element of surprise. This is always a very crucial step in my songwriting. And then, after I come up with a melody or an idea, I start to craft songs from there.
In terms of influences, do you actively seek out inspiration from other musicians or do you let them find their way unconsciously to your songs?
I think both. I find genre to be limiting, it’s a way for the marketplace to make sense of it all. There are the musicians that I listen to the most, they flow through my veins, like Erykah Badu, James Blake, Joni Mitchell, Betty Carter, D’Angelo.
I also studied classical music and jazz, and I’ve been in choirs a lot. I think all of these influences run through in mostly unconscious ways. I try to be very cautious of what I listen to in an active way because it’s so powerful. I don’t listen to a ton of music in my day-to-day life, but when I do, I try to be intentional because it becomes a world in which we live in.
What are some of the biggest challenges you face as an independent musician?
As an independent artist, you support yourself in this patchwork way of making money and so actually creating work or art actually happens in the crevices, like plants growing through cement, coming out against all odds. Another big one is to put one foot in front of the other, you either make work or you don’t.
My godmother, who has been a very successful theater actress her whole life, told me when I was an undergrad: “No one is waiting for you to arrive” [laughs]. And it was so important to hear because, ultimately, we continue or we don’t, and it doesn’t matter anyway, a life is well lived in so many ways but I think, to continue to say “I’m going to keep doing this”, even to take tiny steps, even through this cement I will continue to make work.
It’s a beautiful life, I’m constantly thinking about redefining what it means to be an artist. I see my parents who are in their 60s and are still constantly exploring how to make art. The commercial wants to tell us that an artist’s worth is in their output but I think that’s not the case. It’s our everyday experience that informs who we are.
What do you think of collaborations? Do you think your solo works benefit from collaborations?
Music is deeply collaborative. In my solo project, I write the songs in private, it’s really important to have that time alone for myself to figure out what I want to say and what it means. Then, I bring them to my band. I had this experience, there’s this one song that I wrote maybe a year ago, and then I brought it to my band and it just came alive, it bloomed because it needed them.
And then with Emergence Collective, which is explicitly a collaborative project even in the writing process, it represents a growing edge for me, in a lot of ways. The learning there has been “how do you still care as much but also not in any way take it personally when what I was imagining doesn’t happen.” It’s a really tricky and beautiful navigation of passion and care and attention, but also deep humility, like a really healthy attachment.
This has made me think about my role as a leader in my solo project to honor the vision and the voice of every member of the band. I hope I do it. [laughs]. It’s my learning curve.
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Words by Marcos Hassan
Photo credit: Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez, photo courtesy of artist
