New single & visuals from New York’s Jazz, R&B artist Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez.
“Better For You” grapples with the gaze, focusing on the experience of being objectified and the ambiguous response to this reality. The song is most explicitly about sex and the ways in which heterosexual dynamics often prioritize men’s pleasure.
Raina has recently been profiled by the Complex, Under The Radar, New York Times, The Wire Magazine, NPR, The FADER and many more.
Raina Sokolov-Gonzalez is a singer/composer based in Brooklyn, New York. Born into a family of musicians, music was Raina’s first language and it runs deep within her veins. Rooted in jazz and R&B, the songwriter invites us into her unique sonic world with harmonic nuance and lyrical poetry.
Raina’s cross-genre style is built from the bottom up. With improvisation as a starting point for her songs, Raina draws on her emotionality and leans into her perception of the world around her, uncovering hidden depths within daily life and articulating personal truth with vulnerability and bravery. Songwriting is her way of processing and understanding life in all its complexity.
Her latest single “Better For You” grapples with the gaze, focusing on the experience of being objectified and the ambiguous response to this reality. The song is most explicitly about sex and the ways in which heterosexual dynamics often prioritize men’s pleasure. “Better For You” highlights the ways in which women contort themselves physically and emotionally to be more desirable. Raina shares, “It also depicts the flip side of this, where we become or can become hooked on being the desired one; the way we come to need it, the way our identity becomes tied to this positioning. This is the ambiguity, the grey.” Drawing on her Latinx heritage, the rhythmic piano phrases, dynamic instrumentation and a grooving rhythm section provide a hypnotic backdrop for Raina’s clear and concise vocals.
