Fit Check, Food Check: RaiNao on Alcapurrias and Puerto Rican Designers

RaiNao moves with intention. When the Puerto Rican musician met me at Casa Adela, a restaurant on Manhattan’s historically Puerto Rican Loisaida Avenue, she carried a purse from Santos, the same Boricua brand I’d chosen to wear for our chat. Just as Puerto Rico informs her style, her relationship to home lies at the heart of her sound. Her latest album, Marcriá, is all about her sensory experience of the archipelago. Each track represents a “sensory treatment” that evokes a sight, smell, taste, sound, or feeling, achieved by a stunning range of instruments, from oboes to Brazilian cuíca drums to RaiNao’s own area of expertise, the saxophone.      

Over a lunch of alcapurrias, tostones, pollo guisado, and bistec encebollado, RaiNao unpacked Marcriá’s visual identity and reminisced about the tastes of her childhood. Between bites, we gushed over Puerto Rico’s artistic community and bonded through our love of its fashion designers (Daniela Fabrizi and Eclíptica Atelier are two shared favorites). Read on for a glimpse into her outfit choices, the flavor that defines Marcriá, and her feelings about the Marcriá Tour, currently taking place across the United States. 

Fit Check: Why is it important to you to wear Puerto Rican designers?

I’ve always said that when an artist comes from such a small island, and we’re all so close together, you don’t grow alone. I think there’s a very collective growth taking place in Puerto Rico. There are so many talented musicians and producers that come from my country, and the same goes for other forms of art, like fashion design. It’s so important to me that when people see me, they also see Puerto Rican brands, other creative visions that come from the island. 

Food Check: If Marcriá had a flavor, what would it be? 

Marcriá is definitely green, and it tastes like avocado. 

You’ve mentioned that you were one of the few sighted kids at your elementary school, a specialized school for the blind. How has that experience shaped you as an artist? 

More than as an artist, I think that experience defines me as a person. It gave me a new way to see life — rather, a new way to hear it, to feel it. That definitely manifests in all of my music, but it’s clearest in this most recent album. It’s super sensory and was born out of that experience, conceptually speaking. Marcriá has a lot to do with that. Every song has a sensory treatment with texture, color, flavor, and nods to specific places. Those sensations turned into songs. 

How does it feel to be on tour?

I’ve spent lots of time doing shows, but an actual tour dedicated to a project, this is my first time.  I feel a little bit of everything. I’m happy, I have a little bit of that miedito bueno that comes from adrenaline. But more than anything, I’m so grateful to be touring with such a beautiful band and team. It’s going to be great. The very first place I played outside Puerto Rico was New York, this is my first tour, and New York is the first stop. It had to be. 

In a previous interview, you said you want to speak with what you wear. How have you implemented that philosophy in your wardrobe for Marcriá?

I think that perspective has always been present in me, but when it comes to Marcriá, the visual identity we created for this project was born from a guided meditation. From there, Daniela Fabrizi literally created the wardrobe, pretty much by herself. She made every piece herself, one by one. Everything we’d imagined this album to look like, we were able to bring to life through some form or another. Obviously, upcycling played a huge role [in Daniela’s designs]. That’s always going to be present in her looks. I think fashion is such a creative, effective way to convey a message. 

The visuals for Marcriá contain lots of green. Why did you choose that color?

For me, green represents birth. All of the songs were born from sensory treatments, and we did a general sensory treatment for the entire album. We chose green because I was born and raised on an island in the middle of the sea. For me, [Puerto Rico] is green. And my birthstone is emerald. For me, Marcriá feels like floating, it tastes like avocado, and it was born in the middle of the sea, the same way I was born in Puerto Rico.