Award winning singer-song-writer Raye Zaragoza is testament to the fact that as an artist you don’t need flashy promos or a heavy sound to get a message across. She manages it with just an acoustic guitar and powerful, honest and emotive lyrics. After her track “In The River”, written and released in response to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota, garnered half a million video views along with national media coverage, Raye’s star has only continued to rise higher and her messages reach further.
Championed as an individual who, in the words of PopMatters, is “a voice made for our times”, Raye is not afraid to stand up and speak out – or sing – about the issues that matter to and affect her, particularly social issues. “As a woman of color in America, social issues are things you deal with and see every day of your life,” she says. “I write about my experience and oftentimes my existence has been laced with injustice.”
Raye’s new single “The It Girl”, the video for which PopWrapped are delighted to premiere, tells of her personal struggles with both love and acceptance as a multi-cultural brown woman due to society’s western expectations of women and is an indie rock track that calls for diverse representation in the media. She confides “Growing up, all I ever wanted to be was the it girl. I thought that meant I needed to be a pretty blonde princess Barbie who met her Prince Charming and rode off into the sunset. This fantasy left me with immense inner turmoil and self-hatred. In high school, I would even lighten my skin with lemon juice, dye my hair lighter, and wear blue contacts. I truly thought that in order to be beautiful, you had to be white. The It Girl is my outcry for diverse representation in media, a plea to throw out the old rule book of western expectations of women. I am proud to be a multicultural brown woman with insecurities and a vibrant intersectional identity that I continue to grapple with.” The video was produced with support from ad-free social network VERO. Follow Raye on there for the behind the scenes story of “The It Girl.”
Give “The It Girl” a watch below and for more information on Raye Zaragoza, visit her website, give her page a like on Facebook or follow her on Twitter. Header photo credit: Cultivate Consulting.
