TrueMendous describes her debut album as the best project she has ever created, and she’s eager for fans to finally hear it. Misdiagnosis of Chyvonne Johnson, released on April 1, marks a major step forward for the Birmingham artist after building momentum through a series of EPs and mixtapes.
“I’d never created an album before,” she shared. “I had to make sure it stood apart from everything I’ve released in the past. Listening to it from start to finish, I feel like it’s stronger than anything I’ve made so far. Everything about it is on another level. All the elements made it better.”
That vision extends beyond the music itself. From the visuals for the new tracks to the album artwork designed by Father of Cain—which also appears on new merch—every detail has been carefully considered. Although the writing process wrapped up months ago and the final mixes were completed last summer, taking time to plan the rollout proved valuable.
“It’s frustrating to sit on music, but it makes me even more excited to release it,” she explained. “It’s good, too, because I get to plan the music videos properly and figure out the best way to put it out there.”
The album was shaped by a mix of Birmingham-based producers and collaborators from her label, High Focus. “It’s great to have a team that pushes and supports you,” she said. “They help amplify your voice without making it feel toxic or stifling.”
The album title is inspired by Lauryn Hill, one of her biggest storytelling influences. Following the success of her 2020 HUH? EP, expectations are high. That EP led to unexpected opportunities—Adidas used the beat from “Sweetheart” in a campaign, while “Hmm” landed on the FIFA 21 soundtrack. She also appeared in major ads for Pepsi Max and McVities.
This time, she’s aiming for more film placements. “‘Cause A Scene,’ which has an animated music video, would be perfect for a wild fight scene,” she said. The track kicks off the 17-song record, which blends rap, R&B, and pop, showcasing her versatility. “I’m a bit of a chameleon,” she explained. “I love adapting to different sounds.”
She even made the tough decision to remove some songs from the final tracklist for the first time. The result is a mix that ranges from the nine-minute “Selfish Behaviour” to a 99-second burst of energy on “You Don’t Wanna.” “I don’t plan song lengths—it just feels right,” she said. “When the lyrics ended with the beat, it felt like the perfect close.”
This variety keeps listeners engaged, appealing to fans who enjoy both long, intricate stories and quick, punchy tracks. “If you’re good enough as an artist, it doesn’t matter how long the song is,” she added. “If Drake put out a 30-minute song, people wouldn’t just stop listening halfway.”
Lyrically, the album blends her personal experiences with stories inspired by friends and documentaries, creating a unique and heartfelt perspective. “My older songs were all story-based,” she said. “I used to tell other people’s stories through my voice as a narrator. It’s only in the last two years that I’ve started opening up more about myself.”
The final track, “Yvonne’s Daughter,” is her most personal yet. For someone who admits, “I don’t reveal anything about anything,” it’s a raw look at her relationship with her mother. Family ties keep her grounded in Birmingham, even as her career grows in London.
“Birmingham’s slower than London,” she reflected. “It doesn’t lack talent—it just needs to be seen and heard. London has the labels, A&Rs, and events. I go back to Birmingham to slow down.”
That calm may not last long, with more projects in the pipeline and global ambitions ahead. She’s particularly excited about performing in places where fans don’t speak English but still know the lyrics.
“More than anything, I just want the album to do well,” she said. “I know how much effort went into it, and it’s a really good project. I’m confident and comfortable with it, and I can’t wait to see how people respond.”
Misdiagnosis of Chyvonne Johnson by TrueMendous is out now on High Focus Records.
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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.
