New York City artist Xenia Rubinos dips in and out of genre and structure to create movingly impactful music. She has done it again with “Who Shot Ya?”, a one-two punch of a song urgently calling for the listener to channel both their rage and power.
“I’m cheering on my fam to go and get it, whether that be get their rest, get their peace, get their money, get their justice — to get up and get it,” Xenia said of the song. “How many more times am I going to hear another man in power talk about what is best for the people, only to turn around and put children in cages and murder innocent people in their sleep? This perceived power is no action at all when their interests aren’t being served. The system is working as it was designed to and I’m trying to amplify some of that in my work. Borrowing from Cuban poet Jose Marti’s Versos Sencillos, she sings through a silvery autotune, ‘Soy de todas partes y a todas partes voy’ – I am from all places and to all places I go – an affirmation of the boundless power we possess.”
A collaboration with filmmaker Julia Pitch and choreographer Kate Watson Wallace, the song’s dynamic new video also explores the idea of cages – what we hold and carry in them.
Watch it HERE.
“I was so lucky to collaborate with Kate Watson Wallace on choreography for my friends Xiomara Henry and Attis Clopton to perform — it was really emotional for all of us,” Rubinos said of making the video. “Connecting to our bodies can be a really transformative and healing practice, it’s like music. Movement can give voice to sensations that are otherwise indescribable.”
Rubinos’s powerhouse vocals stem from a combination of R&B, Hip-Hop and Jazz influences, all delivered with a soulful punk aura. Pitchfork has lauded her as “a unique new pop personality” while The New Yorker described her work as “rhythmically fierce, vocally generous music that slips through the net of any known genre.”
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