Read below for office’s exclusive interview with Jarina de Marco, where we discuss multiculturalism, the journey that is motherhood, strip clubs, and more.
You are such a multifaceted artist because not only are you a talented singer, but you also take on all of your own songwriting, visual design, and video direction. When you first pursued music, did you always know you wanted to delve into other areas of the creative process?
As far as writing is concerned, I write for myself, but I also work with collaborators. I think that where I didn't think I was going to be so heavy-handed was in the visuals — even though, as a Virgo, I'm not surprised. Everything in art, in my opinion and my experience, has been collaborative. I think that's where the trick lies, in picking the right collaborators and having the instincts and the taste to be able to hone in. [It's about] having an amazing photographer that you can, together, with his or her or their creativity, be able to springboard into creating a beautiful world together. So I would say that I do have a hand on everything, but it's always with the help of very talented people too.
Since you sing in many different languages, your music is not constricted by cultural boundaries, because there are so many people who can identify with the things that you're putting out there. Did you grow up speaking a bunch of different languages?
I did. So I'm Dominican; I was born in the Dominican Republic to a Dominican mother and a Brazilian father. We moved to Brazil when I was about five or so. My parents are musicians as well and they had a band together for about 15 years. It was a Dominican-Brazilian jazz fusion band. So I got to travel with them as a tour baby, essentially. We lived in Brazil for a period of time because I wanted to explore Brazilian music and spend some time in the Amazon, because my mother was doing musical investigative work with tribes there and learning about their music. We ended up moving back to the Dominican Republic; my parents were very vocal in politics and are very politically leaning with their lyrics at times. They sang a song against the dictator of my country — who was a president — but he was really a dictator, and they sang it at a museum opening, in front of most of his government. We had to leave the country very soon after that because we were blacklisted and we were in danger. We were political refugees in Montreal for six years, which is how I learned French. I was about six by then. So I was Dominican, then all of a sudden I was Brazilian, and then I was from Montreal and French-Canadian. So I had already had the knack of adapting very quickly to my surroundings, and languages. By that point I already spoke Spanish, English, and Portuguese — because I went to an American kindergarten school. So I picked up French later on, had a huge identity crisis, because I felt like, 'Who am I? Where am I? What country do I belong to?' After the dictator passed away, my mother and father moved back to the Dominican Republic where we kind of resumed life. And I had another huge cultural shock where I rediscovered what it was to be Dominican, and Dominican music, and Dominican culture in general because I was at that point, French-Canadian. So that's how I picked up all my languages and I've weaved them in and out of my music. Portuguese, not as much, I use a lot more Portuguese harmonies and rhythms. I throw [in] a little French sometimes when I'm feeling sexy.
I’m sure growing up in many different cultural backgrounds could be a bit confusing at times. Do you feel that your personal identity has become strengthened through your music, as you can use it to show many different sides of yourself and your background?
Yeah, I mean, it also reminds me of the experience of the third or second-generation Latinx person living in America, or first-generation, who has been embedded in American culture. You've lived this dual life of being American and also being Latinx, or whatever other ethnicity you've come from. Anyone who has two places where they can draw culture from can kind of feel like 'in-betweeners.' But also what I've come to understand, later on in life, is that you kind of get to take from two very large fountains of culture. It's really an incredible position to be in. I honestly think multiculturalism is going to be the future in general. We're all going to be mixed up and hopefully, we'll create a better world because of it. Who knows what else we'll fight about, but that's another conversation. Multiculturalism in the end is just enriching and creating new culture by its biculturalism.
I feel like I identify with that on a deeper level. I come from a mixed background too, and you definitely feel caught in the middle sometimes. I think that with your music though, people can connect on that basis. Your sound gives me strong 70s disco vibes — very electric and infectious. Was that sort of electro-pop the natural sound you gravitated towards when you started making music?
When I first started making music, I was in love with Billie Holiday, Chet Baker, and Louis Armstrong. I'm talking about when I was seven years old. My parents were showing me all kinds of music, like world music and jazz, and I gravitated towards Billie and Chet specifically. That's kind of how I started digging into learning English. It was through music, through thinking 'What the hell are they saying?' So I really kept up my English because of jazz. From there I evolved, when I became a teenager, into liking disco-funk. I was in a band with seven boys called The Santo Domingo Funk Crew, which was so much fun and all of them were hot and I was in love with all of them. Anyway, I dabbled with that and then pop, and I think disco-funk and disco will always be a part of me. The music that I've done before these last few singles that I've put out has been very electronic and drum-driven. I have an album coming next year that is way softer; it's about love, which I haven't written about in years. I've been writing about self-assertion, being strong, and protest music. Never about a boy. So these last few singles, I started talking about love, sex, desire, being afraid of being in a relationship. The last single that I put out with Empress Of, called 'Vacío,' is about that fear you have right before something starts because you're putting all of your vulnerability on the table and it feels really uncomfortable, but then you take the plunge and you're in a relationship. I've done all of this music that has nothing to do with love, and all of a sudden I fell in love and I'm writing songs about love.
‘Vacío’ was recently released with Empress Of, and you two are good friends, right? How was it to collaborate on a song with a friend?
It was great! Lorely is a professional and she's such a beautiful writer and singer. I'm so impressed by her vocals. I wrote that song right before the pandemic hit last year, with AJ, who is an incredible producer. I kind of sat there forever without a second verse and throughout the pandemic, I kept thinking about it. I kept listening to that song over and over again, thinking, 'God, this needs someone else in it.' I wanted another flavor. So I asked Lorely, 'Girl, can you throw down some vocals in this?' She said, 'Hell yeah, I can,' and she loved the song. I'm really happy with how it turned out. She's a joy to work with. I'm a huge fan of hers too. So part of me was geeking out.