MusicHead

So I don’t run out of topics, or have to come up with a new opinion every week, I’ll be writing about specific artists that I enjoy. Some familiar, but mostly artists I don’t think are well known or well regarded enough. First up in this feature is…

Raye Zaragoza

Raye Zaragoza is, for my money, one of the best folk singers working today. Strong singing and strong songwriting very much in line with the folk singers like Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell in the 60s and 70s. She seems to understand that all art is inherently political. It either reinforces or challenges the status quo. Her work is to challenge the status quo, whether that be about the difficulty low income people face to enjoy simple pleasure others assume are universal (“They Say”), or her status as a woman in contemporary America (“Fight Like a Girl,” “Strong Woman,” etc). Her songs also frequently deal with realities continued to be faced by indigenous peoples (“Driving to Standing Rock”).

These aren’t just causes celebre for her. She has an intersectional voice that is Woman, Indigenous, Asian, and Latina, and she holds nothing back. Her mission is to represent and lift up those voices we don’t hear enough. She holds a mirror up to us to make us look at ourselves, and a window so we can see outside our experience. That’s exactly what folk music should do.

She’s put out 3 albums to-date and she’s been fully herself in each one. Frequently, when artists start out they soft-peddle their true self until they have the self-confidence or some greater success and they feel more comfortable letting it all hang out. Not with Ms. Zaragoza.

From her very first record, FIGHT FOR YOU (2017), she announced “I’m a native woman and you will listen.” And I did. It’s my opinion that true folk singers are far too few in our contemporary culture. There are not enough voices telling us what we need to here (Buffalo Nichols is one who I may write about later). Her follow-up album, WOMAN IN COLOR (2021), deals largely with her identity as a mixed-race woman. And her most recent release, HOLD THAT SPIRIT (2023), contemplates women’s agency in their own happiness, regardless of cultural expectations.

Born in New York City and raised there and Los Angeles, Ms. Zaragoza is the daughter of a Japanese mother and Mexican-Indigenous father. Her indigenous grandmother was adopted at a young age by a white family and forced to assimilate. All the weight of her history bares on each track.

There’s more to her than just being a top-notch folk singer, though. She’s also written music for Netflix’s SPIRIT RANGERS which features a largely indigenous production team. And currently, if you want to see her perform in person, you can see a few shows she’s booked in California for the rest of the month, or see her portraying Tiger Lilly in a national touring production of PETER PAN.