In the ocean by Rachel Reis

The clock struck 9:30 pm on a busy street in São Paulo, as a young crowd gathered on the sidewalk of a nightclub for a night of shows. Across the street, a less busy diner on the corner operated to the lively sound of the soap opera soundtrack on TV. In both places, the same voice: Rachel Reis.

It’s been less than five years since the singer Feira de Santana released his first original single. Since then, it has united distant ends of the ocean of an industry driven by algorithms. On the one hand, she obtained critical recognition, which earned her a nomination for Latin Grammy. On the other hand, it achieved popular success, which took it and continues to take it daily to the still omnipresent screens of TV serials – at the moment it appears in Rebornwith “Bateu”, her partnership with Gilsons It is Mulu. But Rachel is a mermaid, she navigates well: “We change the tire while the car is moving”, she guarantees.

From home, Rachel brings her voice – her mother’s singing, which was successful in forró when she was growing up. The memories, permeated by musicians and instruments, were the setting where the imaginative child would soon understand the passion for telling stories:

“I like singing, I like my voice, but composition really catches me. I feel like maybe it’s the axis, what connects me to singing, to performing. I have a special thing with composition.”

Maybe that’s why the first experience on stage wasn’t the best. After a couple of years performing in bars, between 2016 and 2018, Rachel ended up disappointed: “I started to wonder about music. I didn’t want to play other people’s music. The night is a school, but you can’t romanticize it too much. I got sick.”

In 2018, she would try another life, now at college. First in Law, then in Advertising, Rachel tried to escape the harsh conditions of music. But the tide is strong and pulled her back: in 2020, she would return with her own track, the single “Ventilador”.

With pen in hand, Rachel sang about the kiss. And the heat, the boat, the peace… she also released her first EP, SLOPEwith excellent production of Zamba It is Cuper. And also “Maresia”, which became a tidal wave – today, the single has more than 23 million streams, on Spotify alone. “During that period I was very focused.”

At an accelerated pace, production of My Scheme. Recorded between Pernambuco and Bahia, with production by Clay It is Guilherme Assisthe album would debut in 2022, just in time to relaunch Rachel onto the stage – this time with her compositions:

“I feel like I was a plank on stage. When I started singing my songs, I didn’t know,” she recalls. “I needed to develop on stage, and there were people who waited for me here, because they know it’s a process.”

With the process, in less than a year, the appointment to the Latin Grammy as Best Rock or Alternative Music Album alongside names like Titans It is Planet Hemp. The nomination, she remembers, would awaken the emotion that she had forgotten was possible in the midst of her accelerated ascension:

“Cry. I’ve been crying a lot. I didn’t really understand when I saw people crying with emotion and recently I have understood what that is.”

At the same time, the attention of TV would come, which would place her in the soundtracks of soap operas such as Fuzuê It is Rebornin addition to the series Cangaço Novo. In Brazilian pop, so influenced by serials, her arrival on the screen was a personal achievement for her: “I was a child obsessed with plots and who wanted to skip school to watch a soap opera, so being there composing the soundtrack for the soap opera also accomplished the child’s desire, as a girl who watched it was a fan of the soap opera.”

Today Rachel already sees herself among the good tide of Bahian singers that she composes. “We have seen this turning point, with the production of Bahia and black people like Attooxxá, BaianaSystem, Luedji Luna, Xênia França, being very highlighted.” And he feels the fame, even outside Brazil: “People started sending me messages now saying: ‘come to Portugal’, because ‘Maresia’ is playing in a soap opera called Cocoa. And I’m ready!”

Without stopping at one success, Rachel is already preparing her next album, scheduled for 2025, but now at her own pace, while exploring the possibilities of My Scheme. Amid the tsunami of recent years, she still found time to complete, at her mother’s request, the Advertising course. But on the horizon, music finally became his only possible direction: “there is nowhere to run, this is my profession”.

See Rachel Reis’ full interview below: