Interviews

Original interview performed by Etelle Shur, Cori Fukushima, and Kristina Millar with Irene Diaz. 

Quotes: 

"But I think for some of my songs I try to use “they” or not so much pronouns. I try in that sense just to make the songs universal. But also, I think music- whatever language it is in- can appeal to everybody and I try , I hope, that my songs, the melody and the feeling of the music hits someone in any way possible. So I think in that sense I want to make it universal, a universal feeling."

"Vocally, I am self-taught. I listen to a lot of music and try to imitate my favorite artists such as Nina Simone, or even male artists like Damien Rice or Radiohead- anybody who belts- I would just try to imitate that."

"I meet a lot of people working at work. They know that I do music and they ask me, 'Why haven’t you made it?' And ‘making it’ for me, there’s a lot of different levels of making it. But to me there’s Beyoncé status or Nora Jones status. But the industry has changed a lot and social media now, there’s a lot of YouTube stars that have actually made it. But you don’t hear about them"

"I just want to be happy, and I realize that when I play my music, when I write my music, it’s just a really great state."

"I think a lot of the media outlets have been Latin based, which is great, and I think it’s because I am Latino and because of my looks. But one of the downfalls for me is that I am not fluent in Spanish and I don’t necessarily sing my songs in Spanish, so it’s been a little tricky to navigate and to find out my audience through that."

"I want to appeal to everybody, even people who don’t speak English."

Follow-up interview by Kristina Millar with Irene Diaz.

Quotes:

"I’ve had people say I sound like different artists, which is great, but for me I, I think my music is kind of hard to, um, pin point, and I as people we’re always trying to pin point what something is or who somebody is. Oh well that person’s, you know, that person’s Mexican! So they have to fit into that, that category, but we’re all just people, and I mean, I can’t say I haven’t had people try to pin hole me but I’ve, I have – um – I’ve had people who know my music and they try to pin point me as Latin, like a Latin artist, but maybe in that sense I already am because I am Latin? But the thing is I don’t play Latin music?"

"I see myself as Latina, but that not just what my music is about. It’s about…it is about universal love and it doesn’t stay in one, one genre or one category of music."

"I think we grow up as women and we’re expected to be kind of like accepting and you know, real delicate and I think I sometimes fall into that trap of thinking, 'Oh I need someone to take care of me,' and I don’t think I should think like that – um – but I think it’s something that a lot of women are brought up that way, to be very delicate and to let somebody else take over..."

"You think you need somebody like a manager, you think you need a producer, you think you need all these social media person, or whatever. When, when you’re barely starting off you can do this all yourself, until it gets so big that you can’t do it anymore and then you need those people. So I think it’s just you’ve got to be careful and as a woman you have to be extra careful and not fall into that trap of 'Oh I’m a woman.'”

"I need to be stronger and with each and every experience that I have, I need to learn from that and just continue growing and continue – um – fighting for myself. Not fighting but just, you know, believing in myself and pushing myself to, to – um – be a better musician and be a better decision maker – um – when it comes to managers or when it comes to people – um – wanting to help."