Alicia

14th July 2022

What does music mean to you? How does it make you feel?

Music is my coping mechanism. It's basically what I use to get through everything, like anything that I'm going through. When I'm happy, when I'm sad, when I'm overwhelmed. That's what I go towards. That's what I always want to use, I don't know if that makes sense. It's basically the thing that I lean on when I don't have anything else.

How big of a part does music play in your life and career?

In my career, not so much, but in my life, it's a huge part. It's how a lot of life lessons were taught to me. It's the background of a lot of bonding time with my family. Every part of my life - every good memory, every bad memory - has a song associated with it. It's usually in the background of every part of my life.

What's a song you know word for word, bar for bar?

It has to be one of two songs and this is gonna sound really dumb, but it's either gonna be First Heartbreak by Tori Kelly or Mockingbird by Eminem

Do you collect vinyl? If so what do you enjoy about it? And if not, how come?

Yeah, so I do collect vinyl and I really just love that records are like the way that you can make music - which is like an art form that's not necessarily tactile - something you can hold. It's cool to listen to music on my phone, 'cause it's so accessible and easy, but when I'm listening to a record or I'm holding a record, it just feels like I have piece of what the artists made in a way that listening on my phone doesn't give me.

Tell me about your favourite concert that you went to.

So there's this Dominican artist, his name is Romeo Santos. He used to be in this bachata group called Aventura and he recently - pre pandemic - did a show that was at MetLife stadium, [it was a] massive stadium show and he played for five hours and he brought out so many of the bachata genre's OGs that it was probably the best experience of my life, and I just remember going home, like, "did that actually really happen and was I actually there?" because it just felt so life altering and massive. It was so cool.

Your favourite lyric?

I don't know why whatever is coming to mind right now, all I can think about right now is Adele's song All I Ask from 25 and it's the part where she goes, It matters how this ends/'Cause what if I never love, again? I don't know, she was on to something with that one.

Give me the name of a playlist you made with no context.

hard for me to say

What are your desert island disc albums?

It's gonna be Lemonade by Beyonce, Utopia by Romeo Santos and The Emancipation of Mimi by Mariah Carey.

Tell me about music your parents played while you were growing up.

I can think of two artists, there's one album, by one of the artists. It's called Quien Dijo Ayer by Ricardo Arjona. But then my mom was a big Ana Gabriel fan, so she used to listen to a lot of Ana Gabriel, especially when we were cleaning.

Briefly talk me through the songs you put in this playlist, what do they mean to you.

So I chose the songs in my playlist by basically going through songs that were my favourite song at some point in my life or songs that still are my favourite, songs that I blast in my room, songs that I know every word to, songs whose lyrics get me hype or songs whose lyrics got me through something or just songs that I've had on repeat because they came out and had been stuck in my head.