Today New York-based, Peruvian-born artist Daniela Lalita releases her debut single and music video for ‘Tenía Razón,’ out now on Young. Written, produced (with co-production from Sega Bodega) and directed by Lalita, it’s a bold debut for the multi-hyphenated artist whose practice spans music, costume design, film, performance and fine art.
Speaking on the new single and music video, Lalita shares: “This music video is a form of self exploration about one’s relationship with past and future selves with the intention of trying to love and understand oneself, in all its multiplicity, regardless of how at times that can manifest itself as constant, antagonistic… almost monstrous voices that try to destroy one’s sense of self. So many of these inner battles and emotions are almost impossible to explain so I hope to connect with others who might be experiencing similar emotions.”
Inspired by magic, ritual and her matrilineal bloodline, the debut of Daniela Lalita’s unbounded work began in the fall of 2017 with a performance art piece titled Madre: A Disruptive Environment. Critically-acclaimed by Office Magazine, Dazed and Tunica Studio, the performance was a prominent display of the intersection of Lalita’s artistry, featuring nine figures draped in elaborate costumes and disfigured makeup each representative of the Jungian archetypes of the mother. In 2018 photography and video from the piece was featured in the exhibition “Vanquished by the Fickle Goddess” at Venice’s Spazio Ridotto. While visual art, sculpture and couture lured in the captivated gaze of the 300-plus audience in attendance, Madre provided the introductory environment for Lalita’s musical sound to take shape.
Sound has always been integral to Lalita’s work. She studied piano as a child, later attending design school at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and a graduate music technology program at NYU. In New York she studied under CalArts founder and buchla mod synthesizer pioneer Morton Subotnick. He taught Lalita how to compose with the instrument, and the buchla synth opened up a world without the limitations of traditional scales for her. The instrument proved to be the perfect weapon-of-choice for a boundlessly curious young artist like Lalita, whose practice of recording and layering vocals were implemented to craft a multiplicity of sonic worlds, the first of which she introduces on “Tenía Razón.”
While “Tenía Razón” provides the first view into Lalita’s solo debut, in 2019 she collaborated with Amnesia Scanner on Tearless lending her vocals and songwriting on album singles “AS Tearless” and “AS Acá,” the latter in which she starred in the haunting video for; joining them to perform live in Berlin for the duo’s “ANESTHESIA SCAMMER” presentation at Kraftwerk and last month at Sónar Festival. Immersing herself within a network of New York and global underground artists, Lalita has worked with brands Eckhaus Latta and walked in shows for LRS, and Givenchy. She opened for Caroline Polachek at Warsaw in Brooklyn in early 2020 and appeared at the MTV VMAs in 2021. This year will see Daniela Lalita focusing entirely on her own music, “Tenía Razón” being the exceptional first offering, a window into her mystical world still yet to unfold.
Daniela Lalita “Tenía Razón” single artwork
Daniela Lalita
