LatinX American singer-songwriter Sarai talks to Vogue Philippines about her childhood immersed in a vibrant medley of sound, losing her voice, and regaining it stronger than before. Sarai ’s earliest memory is of herself dancing. Picture her at three or four years old, bopping along to salsa and merengue with her parents in their Philadelphia home.
When the mood suddenly shifted—first to ’80s classic rock, then to jazz, and another genre, and another genre—she would continue swaying, enveloped by pure sound. This scene is how she would describe the way she grew into music and, subsequently, how she found her sound. “My mother is from Venezuela, South America, so [I grew up around] a lot of fun, upbeat music,” she smiles.
“And then my dad is from New York. There’s a lot in American music, but we listened to everything from rock to pop to jazz and so many other genres.” Today, her discography reflects that endless mixtape.
Pulling from reggaeton, pop, and R&B, the singer-songwriter crafted a category of her own making, one that reflects the “two worlds” she grew up around and the worlds she continually discovers for herself. “I grew up speaking both English and Spanish at home,” she tells Vogue Philippines . “So it was very vibrant cultures all throughout my childhood, which gave me a big appreciation for wanting to learn about other cultures as well.
” To Sarai, music becomes a sort of language that, as her artist description reads, has “the pow.