Raquel Kiaraa is almost intimidatingly impressive. A true multihyphenate artist in her own right, this singer/songwriter/actress/coach/poet has had her hands in what seems like a little of everything. At 32 deciding to try her hand at singing and learning piano and a way to integrate her natural skills as a poet into their next logical step as a lyricist, she’s been on a warpath of establishing herself as one of the next big names to look out for, and I would argue, she’s doing a damn good job of that.
INSTAGRAM: https://www.instagram.com/raquelkiaraa/?hl=en
This is someone who produced and sold out two of her own performances that she marketed herself because she believes in her work that much. Writing has always been an inherent part of her life even aside from the poetry, she’s been journaling from a young age and I believe that has allowed her to always remain in tune with her most authentic and sensitive sides, things she puts fiercely on display in her newest single “Dear Jesus”. Almost an anti-ballad of sorts, this song sees Kiaraa at one of her lowest points, faced with uncertainty and stress consistently building around her. Even admitting she’s not a religious woman, she’s messed up, but she believes the signs that the spirits point to her, but now they’ve gone silent and she’s turned to Jesus to find out why. What’s the answer she gets? Well, that’s kind of complicated,
In the most concise literal interpretation of the song, she doesn’t get any answers but holds out an almost fleeting hope that one day her questions will be answered. She’s not even asking for out and out help, she just wants to be able to make sense of everything that’s been thrown her way and when you take into account the many hardships Kiaraa has taken most undoubtedly on this journey to carve out her name and this includes an injury she took that stopped her athletic career from taking off. It’s never a pity party and its brutally uncompromising in how it doesn’t offer any way of validation from an external presence, but I think that there will be plenty who decide to take this song more internally to come to the conclusion that these things are what you make of it and how you handle it.
APPLE MUSIC: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/raquel-kiaraa/id1538913910
Personage is most developed in hardships and sometimes the blessing (as hard as it is to view it as in the moment) is being able to take all those things that at one point knocked you down, and transform them into something that can lift someone else up, and this song doesn’t end “uplifting” in a traditional sense, but it feels very much like it ends on a “to be continued” note, where Kiaraa whether as herself or as a narrator just for this song is down, but not out. It’s an inspiring piece about perseverance and the unrelenting power of the human soul, even at its lowest points and I can’t recommend it enough.
Loretta Kim