Notes on Xenia Rubinos’ new album

“Una Rosa” is the third project released by Xenia Rubinos, an Afro-Latina artist based in Brooklyn, after her debut album “Black Terry Cat,” which came out in 2016, and “Magic Trix,” an EP that came out in 2013. Endless genres (like R&B, hip-hop, soul, danzón, bolero, funk, and punk) influence her songs. It is one of the things that makes her so unique as an artist, that her music takes in so many different styles it avoids classification. As a result, her vision and talent as an artist are limitless.

Lyrically, her songs have many different topics, such as heartbreak and failed relationships. However, her lyrics that explore her Afro-Latina heritage and experiences as being Afro-Latina in the settler-colonialist United States are the most important in her music. These themes were first seen prominently in “Black Terry Cat.” The song “Mexican Chef,” for example, which critiqued the white appropriation of Latino/Latina/Latiné cooking, and “Black Stars,” which was influenced by the 2014 police killing of Michael Brown. Despite this, she has (rightfully) rejected the label of a “protest artist.” As she told The Guardian in 2016, “Because I’m saying things about being a Brown girl in America, suddenly it’s a protest album,” referring to the labels used to describe “Black Terry Cat.”

To group Rubinos as simply a “political” or “protest” artist is willful naivety. All art under a settler-colonialist, capitalist country like the United States will reflect that environment, no matter what your position in that environment is. As Mao Zedong once said, “There is in fact no such thing as art for art’s sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent from politics.” Popular culture in the United States, for the most part, maintains, normalizes, and defends the existence of the settler-colonialist, capitalist state. One way it does it is through the mass production of art by bourgeois artists (within the bourgeois music and film industries, as examples) that could come off as “apolitical.” Many works of art produced that are “political” in this environment are often unthreatening to the capitalist, settler-colonialist state.

Rubinos writes and sings about the experiences all colonized peoples face under settler-colonialism, and the suffering that has gone into her music is not opinion. These are real things she has had to go through. Rubinos knows this (obviously more than I do), and you will have to understand as well to enjoy her music. Rubinos’ experiences as a colonized person in the United States are a focal point on “Una Rosa,” the way they were on “Black Terry Cat” as well.

Some of my favorite songs on the album showcase this, as an example, specifically “Working All The Time,” “Who Shot Ya?” and “Don’t Put Me In Red.” The former criticizes capitalism and the coercion of selling labor-power that the system depends on to profit. Here, Rubinos writes and sings about how capitalism requires poverty and indoctrination to profit. We hear this in the following lyrics – “You gotta keep me poor and busy or I’d be a danger. The truth is I’m a threat, and it’s got you upset.” 

Rubinos recognizes within those lyrics that such a system is unsustainable for the non-bourgeoisie. She also knows that capitalism robs people time to pursue actual, challenging intellectual interests. Like Rubinos said in July, “All of that progress and thought and action that came about in this past year just goes to show you how much the people are capable of when they’re exhausted and in a zombie-like state of work 24/7. People need rest in order to think and to organize.”

We see this explained in “Who Shot Ya?” too. The song discusses the police killing of Breonna Taylor in 2020, the concentration camps ICE has put Latino/Latina/Latiné and Black people in, and the genocide (which is still ongoing) of Indigenous people in the United States that allowed it to become rich and powerful. The song is not the first time Rubinos has criticized the racist police state. One noteworthy lyric on “Black Terry Cat,” in my opinion, came in this satirical lyric in “Mexican Chef,” “Brown gets shot, Brown got what he deserved cause he fought.” 

Someone who listens to this song may think these topics have no connection. However, it is a musical montage, making clear to the listener how the United States, as a settler-colonialist country, depends on force to maintain wealth and power. ICE, the police, and the colonizers who settle on Indigenous lands all engage in violence, and ultimately genocide, for that. All colonized peoples have been victims of that, with an ongoing genocide attempted against them for wealth and power. It is the same in the 2020s as it was in 1492. Rubinos furthers this point on “Don’t Put Me In Red” with the following lyrics – “I speak in three languages, you barely speak in one. Kids you put in cages look like they could be my sons, you forget we were here when the west was won.”

“Don’t Put Me In Red” is notable because it is one of many songs on this album that features her writing and singing in both English and Spanish, with many songs as well being sung entirely in Spanish. “Ay Hombre” and “Si Llego” are two other songs on the album, as examples, sung in both languages (the majority of the lyrics on both are written and sung in Spanish). Both feature memories of a former lover are at the forefront. We know of her heartbreak from these songs. The result is that the listener is made aware of the power of those memories, with something you could once cherish becoming a distant memory in the cubic centimeters in your head.

The songs already mentioned are the ones that stood out to me the most. I love how the album makes greater use of synthesizers, software emulators for drums, and samples than her other projects. It helps showcase the unique musical styles present in her music.

Every release Rubinos has put out is enjoyable, in my opinion. However, this is my favorite album she has made in her career so far. Whatever you do, listen to “Una Rosa,” put its songs on your playlist, and check out her other releases if looking for some music to discover.