Some of us are lucky to be professionally talented at one thing, whether it’s a sport or dance or photography, but few of us are lucky enough to be that talented at multiple things.
Raquel Denis is a practicing poet, writing about her life as an Afro Latina in Arizona and the experiences her community faces, and she is now about to put out her first EP as a musician.
The Show had the chance to speak with Raquel in a green room at the Van Buren in downtown Phoenix for a Tiny Desert Concert.
Full conversation
MARK BRODIE: Some of us are lucky to be professionally talented at one thing, whether it’s a sport or dance or photography, but few of us are lucky enough to be that level of talent at multiple things. That’s where we meet Raquel. Denis Raquel is a practicing poet writing about her life as an afro Latina in Arizona and experiences that her community faces, and she’s now about to put out her first EP as a musician, I sat down with Raquel in a back Green Room at the Van Buren in downtown Phoenix for a tiny desert concert. But I started by asking how she got started writing poetry.
RAQUEL DENIS: I started writing poetry in the sixth grade.
BRODIE: Wow.
DENIS: Yeah, and then it wasn’t until college that I really started writing more intensely, so I would say, since I was in sixth grade, but like, really, really trying to take it seriously, since, like 2016-15, when I transferred to ASU and started their creative writing program.
BRODIE: So at what point did you think, “OK, I have all these great poems. Maybe I could put these to music?”
DENIS: That’s a funny question. It’s funny because I’ve been playing music since I was really little. I’ve always been writing, like journaling and sort of like jotting down my feelings and my day and hard things going on at home. So writing has always been a big part of my life. I would make up these stupid songs when I was little on the patio, and so they kind of flow in and out of each other, like the poetry and the songwriting. But yeah, I actually started songwriting in high school.
BRODIE: Well, it sounds like you kind of had these two parallel paths where you’ve been writing since sixth grade or so, you’ve been playing music since you were a little kid, and at a certain point they just kind of converged.
DENIS: Oh yeah. In high school, for sure, yes.
BRODIE: What happened?
DENIS: Ooh. Well, there were some really difficult things going on in my home, and I found that writing songs and writing poetry were like a really safe outlet for me. And so when things were hard at home, I would kind of like silo myself away into my room, kind of just let all these feelings sort of come out. And then I started writing them down. Then I started paying attention to, like, the word choice and the lyrics.
BRODIE: Would you consider your songs biographical? You mentioned you wrote a lot of poetry and jotted down notes when things were hard in high school, sort of about your life. Do you still use your own life as an inspiration for your songs?
DENIS: I do. It’s usually based on my own experience and my own emotions. And I actually have been writing more songs that are explicit about family and childhood and really being more open in that way.
BRODIE: What is that like for you, putting things that are I would imagine, in many ways are very personal, not just on a page for somebody to read in a book in their house or in a library, but that you’re actually singing in front of people who are looking at you when you’re talking about things that might have been difficult for you in your life?
DENIS: Yeah, it’s scary. I can feel really vulnerable, especially playing gigs at shows where people might be drinking or smoking outside or whatever. They’re there to have a good time, or they’re there because they’re also on the bill, but they may not know my music or like my music.
So that can be hard sometimes, but I kind of have to remember that I sing primarily just for my own relief, and kind of just my own like, “I need to do this,” brings me a lot of relief. And then I’ll try to think about, like, maybe someone is here that needs some relief too. That kind of helps push me through the feelings of, like, “This is really scary. I’m singing this song about my mom, everyone’s gonna know our life, or people are gonna think I’m emo” or whatever, and that kind of helps me push through.
BRODIE: Raquel, can you play a song for us?
DENIS: Sure, I’m gonna go ahead and play a song called “Soft.” And here it is.
(Raquel Denis plays “Soft”)
BRODIE: Have you ever looked at a song that you have written some amount of time after you’ve written it, maybe even after you’ve performed it, and looked at the words and thought, “Wow, this means something totally different to me now than it did when I put the words on paper?”
DENIS: Yes, it’s crazy. So the song “Soft” for example, I wrote that in 2014 and I was like, I don’t know 21, I think, 22, something like that. And I was just not feeling great, and wrote that song, and didn’t really think a whole lot about where it was coming from. And then a couple years later, I realized, like, “Wow, this song is actually about a feeling I have about this really sort of traumatic thing that happened in my life,” and I didn’t realize that till many years later.
But singing that song now in kind of our time, in this very difficult time that we’re in politically and in Arizona and United States, all of it. When I sing it, it makes me think of people in my position or people in worse positions who are feeling like, “I’m really in it. I’m in the dirt. No one’s listening. I don’t have a voice. And I want to continue to feel human and feel vulnerable and feel soft and joyful and all those things.”
That’s what “Soft” means to me now, is kind of like speaking to that experience of being marginalized, or being afraid of deportation or whatever. I’ve had friends hear that song and be like, “Oh, would you want to sing that at this human rights organization or whatever?”
BRODIE: Do you feel pressure to be a representative for groups of people, individuals, anything like that in your music?
DENIS: You know I don’t feel a pressure, but I do feel a responsibility, but I do feel a responsibility to speak to the things that are hurting my community, whether that’s in song or before I play. Sometimes I bring up something going on politically, and I’ll be like, “Hey, I don’t know if you heard about Scott Warren, but he’s going through trial right now,” and this was a couple months ago. And “You should donate to No More Deaths” or whatever, because so many other voices are trying to drown that work out and really erase it.
And so I do feel responsible to at least speak to it a little bit. And then in my songwriting, it’s not even a sense of pressure or responsibility. It’s like a need. It’s like, I’ve been writing more about what this feels like to be a marginalized person right now.
BRODIE: You have a need to do it for yourself, not just for the other people in similar positions.
DENIS: Yeah, like, it sucks a lot, and so I feel like I have to go home and write about it, because otherwise I just feel really overwhelmed and sad and sort of despondent.
BRODIE: All right. Raquel, can you play one more song on the way out here?
DENIS: Absolutely, the last song I’m playing is untitled.
(Raquel Denis plays “Untitled”)
If you’re in a band or know of one you’d like to hear on air, send us a note at [email protected].
