XENIA RUBINOS with LIDO PIMIENTA at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen West), Saturday (September 3), doors 8 pm. $12. rotate.com, soundscapesmusic.com, ticketfly.com.
“Music is my opportunity to try to understand and be better,” explains Xenia Rubinos. “I’ve been in a fight with words for over a decade, and it was time for me to face myself.”
It’s a surprising admission by the Brooklyn-based singer/songwriter whose second album, Black Terry Cat (and first for Epitaph imprint ANTI-), is one of the most politically charged releases of 2016. BTC sees Rubinos confidently tackling race, gender and class inequities in America, but early on in Rubinos’s career such an album seemed a farfetched idea.
“It was, and is, really challenging to say what’s on my mind,” she says. “Facing myself is always the most nerve-racking and scary thing. Why is it that it’s so much easier to listen to others or do things for others than to listen to yourself? I don’t know, but I’m trying to change that. It’s a work in progress.”
Raised in Hartford, Connecticut, Rubinos grew up in the late 90s singing along to Mariah Carey hits before going on to study voice at Boston’s Berklee College of Music on a full scholarship. Soon enough, the musical and political power of Nina Simone replaced her childhood love of Carey.
“She was an incredible storyteller with so many important things to share with us,” gushes Rubinos. “She was truly reflecting her times and speaking to civil rights issues, racism and classism.” Simone’s enduring influence is all over Black Terry Cat.
After touring in support of her 2012 self-released debut, Magic Trix, Rubinos returned home with new eyes. Magic Trix garnered the genre-shifting artist buzz, inspiring her to come up with a “ghetto-fabulous rough elegance” sound based in funk, hip-hop and rock, and touring made her a more confident live performer.
But writing the songs that would eventually make up Black Terry Cat did not come easy. “I didn’t want to be another misinformed or undereducated person adding to the noise. I didn’t want to speak on things I don’t know about – and there is so much I don’t know yet – but what I do know is my lived experience.” That experience inspired her to write despite the fear. “Ultimately, I had to fool myself into writing some of these songs. With I Won’t Say, I kept making fun of myself, and saying, ‘C’mon this is so corny and literal. Throw it away!’ But I forced myself to push on until it was done.”
That song, along with Black Stars and Just Like I, fearlessly explores the challenges of being a woman, as well as protests against the treatment of people of colour in the U.S. But BTC’s most biting indictment is standout cut Mexican Chef.
Reminiscent of the retro-soul production work of Daptone Records founder Gabe Roth and 70s funk classics like Rufus’s Tell Me Something Good, the song explores economic inequality through the lens of a seemingly mundane sight in New York City.
“I was running errands in Brooklyn and saw restaurants setting up for the night,” explains Rubinos, who embarks on a North American tour this weekend. Through their back doors she could see the mostly Latino kitchen staff preparing food and listening to bachatas and rancheras music. Front of house, the mostly white hosts and wait staff were listening to indie rock. “It was like two universes in one place, and the scene kept repeating over and over.”
The rest of Black Terry Cat has similarly relevant things to say about the intense focus on identity politics in the U.S., fever-pitch political battles and the activism of Black Lives Matter.
Rubinos is not surprised the U.S. is currently at a boiling point. She surmises it was simply a matter of time.
“We go in cycles. America struggles with ethnic identity, fear of the unknown, racism, systematic oppression, aggressiveness – none of these are new issues,” she says. “Our pockets are hurting and they have been for a long time. There’s only so long you can distract folks from what’s really going on. People are tired of working so much and earning so little. It’s only natural that all of this unrest would come to the surface.”
Despite America’s contentious climate, Rubinos is hopeful change will come.
“We are starting to talk about all this more and take action to understand what we can do to make things better,” she explains. “I have faith in people. We have to give each other a chance, and education is the beginning of that chance for us to grow.”
music@nowtoronto.com | @ChakaVGrier
