ON THE RISE
The collaborative project of Craig Lowe, better known as The C.o.o.l (Chase Opportunity or Lose) and Derion Scroggins, AKA Day Underscore, It's A Cool Day is the vessel by which two incredible musicians share their Chicago roots and a unique blend of R&B and Hip Hop with the world. Their most recent project, an EP titled You’re Welcome explores the duality of words, music and emotions layered over insightful lyrics and exciting beats.
It's A Cool Day is the brainchild of Greg "Olskool Ice-Gre" Lewis who envisioned Cool and Day as a duo (originally solo artists), and knew as a collective they'd be destined for great things. Now proudly repped by Honest Music, the duo is truly making magic.
You may have already heard the hit single “The Butterfly Effect” from It’s A Cool Day’s new EP. The song is very forward about its dual meaning, describing both the feeling of getting butterflies and hinting at the importance of the little things, a play on the song’s title.
Songs like “Bucket Seats” and “Resuscitation” showcase the duo’s versatility. While “Bucket Seats” defines the peak of excitement in a new romantic venture, “Resuscitation” is more laid back, taking you through the feeling of redemption after a fight or slip up in a relationship.
Another notable track on the project is “Dogeza” another play on terminology, with the title referring to a Japanese tradition of showing gratitude. “It’s a very confident, cocky song,” Day explained. “It’s kind of our way of telling our fans that they can be grateful for what we’re giving them with this album.” The song truly stands out as one with a forward message and the knowledge that these two are not to be messed with.
“Dogeza” is also the basis for the project’s title. “You’re Welcome, like a lot of this project has two meanings,” Cool explained. “One is the same as what ‘Dogeza’ is saying, and the other is more of a humble ‘welcome in’ kind of meaning.”
In its entirety, You’re Welcome is a little slice of Cool and Day’s lives and innermost thoughts. “The project talks about a lot of topics that we think are really important,” they said. “Everything from feeling like you're making all the right moves, to exploring how it feels to be a father, husband, Black man, in a modern world.” It's A Cool Day is the perfect venue for these two to express themselves while connecting with each other and a community of people with shared experiences.
Following the release of You’re Welcome on June 28, It’s A Cool Day is looking forward to sharing more visuals to go alongside the project. The duo is also excited about some of their other upcoming content and the release of their merch line, all things you can find updates about on their social media.
Make sure to stay tuned in to It’s A Cool Day as well as the individual works of Day Underscore and The C.o.o.l. on various platforms for new music, visuals and social posts.
Instagram
Twitter
TikTok
YouTube
Facebook
Photo Credit to: Mike Quain Photo
ON THE RISE
Even more than 6,000km away from her hometown of Santurce, Puerto Rico, RaiNao still manages to keep a piece of home with her. It’s Monday morning in Madrid, and the 32-year-old, born Naomi Ramírez Rivera, is calmly sipping on a cup of black coffee surrounded by fan palms and chestnut trees inside the terrace of her hotel. Coffee is her morning ritual back home, and things don’t change even if mere hours ago she was performing in front of 70,000 people as a guest on Bad Bunny’s ‘Debí Tirar Más Fotos’ residency in the city.
“I think it was the biggest venue I’ve ever performed at, or maybe it was Brazil,” RaiNao gushes, referring to her February appearance on the tour in São Paulo. Ultimately, the numbers don’t matter; for her, it’s all about the experience. “Even if I had done it 10 times over, it’s always beautiful and a different surprise.”
Music has always been a constant in RaiNao’s life. She began playing the saxophone at 11, but she never thought it would be the way she would make a living. “It’s all Wiso Rivera’s fault,” she says with a laugh. During the pandemic, her then-boyfriend and now creative partner and go-to co-producer encouraged her to go for it. She was stuck in a rut, juggling part-time jobs, when she realised that was not the life she wanted to lead.
“I felt overwhelmed that I thought, ‘Am I really going to spend the rest of my life working inside a bank?’ Wiso told me, ‘We have the tools, the studio is right there. Let’s just do it.’ And we did it.” Her stage name followed naturally. The moniker, a play on her nickname “Nao” with the creolisation of “right now,” is her own carpe diem. “It’s become a mantra for me,” she explains. “I’m in the moment all the time now. It’s a goal and a way of life.”
That now is what has taken RaiNao to global stages, performing ‘PERFuMITO NUEVO’ across the world, on US television, and gaining new listeners along the way. The song is what has put her on the map, and she’s more than grateful to Bad Bunny for the exposure. “He’s an artist who knows what he wants but also gives you your space to create,” she says, adding that their collaboration flowed as smoothly as a hot knife through butter. “I had a lot of freedom, and I’m always going to be thankful for that. I love that type of creative connection; it’s intuitive. We listen to each other. It’s great when anyone connects with your music, but he’s obviously a very important artist for Puerto Rico. Knowing he appreciates my music and my art, and that he says it every time he gets the chance, is incredible.”
She believes it’s precisely this type of interdependent local network that makes the Puerto Rican music scene as special as it is. “The support between artists has been key in careers that blow up,” she says. “We really do rely on each other and uplift each other constantly. It’s beautiful.”
The same way she got the cosign from Bad Bunny, RaiNao is also sharing the spotlight with Puerto Rican talent on her latest project, her second studio album, ‘Marcría’, a play on words that refers to both the PR slang for “spoiled brat” and “sea-raised”. In the 16-track album, RaiNao lends the mic to up-and-coming local musician Frido Vargas, who released his first song, ‘Mareo’, as part of the project.
“I’ll always make space to draw attention to the talent coming from my island, which I know goes hard and deserves as many ears and eyes as I do,” she says. Her debut studio album, ‘Capicú’, followed a similar pattern with the inclusion of Gyanma’s ‘Bajo Candau’.
“I’ll always make space to draw attention to the talent coming from my island, which I know deserves as many ears and eyes as I do”
“Puerto Rico’s indie scene is bustling, and you need to be on the island, soaking it up, to know [local artists],” RaiNao shares. Her label was “sweating” when she proposed including ‘Mareo,’ but when Vargas played the song for her, she knew it belonged in ‘Marcría’.
That’s not to say the project isn’t entirely RaiNao’s. Though it borrows its name from the sea, her ultimate “safe space”, ‘Marcría’ is born from RaiNao’s experience at 10, when her mother enrolled her in a school for the visually impaired. The album is a sensory journey accompanied by guided meditation, colour visualizers, and more to tell the full picture. You’ll notice green is a predominant theme. Emerald is RaiNao’s birthstone and the central piece of a ring she received in sixth grade, when she graduated from said school. As such, the hue has tinged the entire album, manifesting in music videos and in the small orb featured on the cover art.
On YouTube, she has microstories for each song that complement the sensory experience. “Not everyone has seen those, and they form a little story that I wrote based on the sensorial treatments,” she explains. “That came first, and then came the songs. It was an experiment.”
Only two tracks were created before the overarching theme was set: ‘Chamberí’ and the single ‘Gris’, which the artist initially intended to give to someone else. Legendary producer Tainy reached out and asked her to send over a few songs for his repertoire, and RaiNao obliged. “I sent him a few, but I kept going back to ‘Gris’ and thinking it was my song; someone else might like it, but they aren’t going to like it as much as I do.” It wasn’t until she was already structuring the project’s concept that she felt she needed to ask for it back. “I felt no other song exemplified water as much as ‘Gris’ did.”
Another emotional crux on the album is ‘Cántaro’, featuring salsa legend Andy Montañez, one of many remarkable collaborations alongside the likes of Omara Portuondo and Cultura Profética. The song marked the first time RaiNao recorded her own sax in her career. “I know that there are better sax players in Puerto Rico whose sound is way better than mine, and I always tap them to record,” she explains, “but this was a very personal song, and it needed to be me even if the result is not the best.”
The melody for the track was born from a sample of her voice and was later re-envisioned and reworked into a brass comp. Her sax is complemented by a bassoon, played by her best friend, who sent in recordings from Jacksonville, Florida. The result is her take on the “Death of the Author” literary theory and, in a way, her own eulogy. “Once you put out a project, it dies for you,” RaiNao explains, “but with that death comes another birth, another interpretation.”
‘Marcría’ comes to a close with the track that lends it its name, which sees RaiNao reciting a poem by the late Puerto Rican artist Ángelamaría Dávila, included in the 1966 poemario ‘Homenaje al ombligo’. RaiNao serendipitously came across Dávila’s work while working on the album. Upon reading this poem, she was stunned. It perfectly encapsulated the project. “It’s remarkable that this poem was born years ago from the mind of another Puerto Rican woman who’s no longer with us.”
RaiNao toyed with the idea of borrowing from the poem and playing around with vocal layering to use it as an interlude in a song that she’d call ‘Garabato’ (slang for “scribble”). “I wanted something simple that’d bridge the project from its more danceable side to its darker side,” she recalls. Ultimately, she felt the poem, as it was, was the perfect summary, a bio to ‘Marcría’.
Throughout the process of working on this album and the accolades it’s brought her, including a spot in YouTube’s Foundry Class, RaiNao feels “blessed and happy”, but she knows the final word no longer belongs to her; it belongs to the world. “For me, art is very spiritual. I knew I came into this world to leave it a better place with my art,” she says. “I’m always going to try not to dehumanise myself, not to stray too far away from myself to create.”
RaiNao’s ‘Marcría’ is out now via Rimas Entertainment.
