By Brian Wise
Singer/songwriter Alynda Segarra’s journey has taken her from the Bronx to hitchhiking across the United States to finally settling in New Orleans. That journey is reflected in the latest Hurray For The Riff Raff album, The Past is Still Alive, which is also tinged with the sadness of loss.
It was more than a decade ago that I first met Alynda Segarra, along with other members of Hurray For The Riff Raff at the time. Their album Small Town Heroes, the group’s third on a proper label, had just been released. I was in New Orleans for Jazz Fest, and Alynda and the crew hiked over to the hotel where I was staying, and we chatted in the lobby. I recall it well because I was struck by the fact that while Alynda was fronting the group and was the main songwriter, there was a shyness and reticence that seemed the antithesis of a performing musician.
Fast forward a year later, and Hurray For The Riff Raff were on the Jazz Fest bill, and Alynda’s stagecraft had advanced considerably. By the time the group arrived at Bluesfest in 2018, it was as if a complete transformation had taken place. Segarra prowled the stage with a powerful and confident presence and commanding voice.
This transformation has also been evident in Segarra’s approach to music. The 2017 album The Navigator explored the musician’s Puerto Rican heritage and upbringing in the Bronx. Life On Earth in 2022 was called ‘nature punk,’ and the music drew inspiration from influences as diverse as The Clash and Bad Bunny. This year’s album, The Past Is Still Alive, reflects on years of travel and also the loss of the musician’s father.
Segarra recorded the latest album with producer and multi-instrumentalist Brad Cook at his North Carolina studio, with a small ensemble and some special guests, such as SG Goodman, Mike Mogis (Bright Eyes), and Conor Oberst. The album also includes a sample of the voice of Segarra’s father, Jose Segarra, on the final track, ‘Kiko Forever,’ immediately creating a sentimental patina.
“I think it was a really joyful experience because my dad was so funny, and I also really wanted to collaborate with him,” explains Segarra, “but he was a little bit more shy in his later years. So, I recorded him playing his keyboard when he wasn’t noticing. I thought it was a funny way to finally get him on a record. He just really embodied music in this really incredible way.”
“Music was in his voice and in his joking and in the way he walked,” continues Segarra, who adds that Jose – who was a music teacher – played guitar, saxophone, and flute. “He could play a little bit of everything, and he found a lot of healing and solace in music and in teaching, and just a lot of joy, even though he experienced so many hard things. So, I think what’s been sticking with me more than anything is that guidance.”
“He was a very special person,” she continues, “and he had experienced so much fighting in Vietnam as a very young kid and had suffered so much trauma from that experience. I just learned so much from him about healing and about how to use art as a healing tool. He was so dedicated to playing music every day. He was dedicated to making jewelry, to collecting art from Puerto Rican artists that he would meet on Facebook. That’s something that really stuck with me. So, I thought to put his voice to his music was really important and just showed this guidance that I’ve been given about how to live an artistic life.”
“I think what helps keep it really fresh is reinventing and exploring,” says Segarra when I mention the long journey since first leaving home in the Bronx to explore America and then pursue music. “I think with each record I’ve really tried to just dive into what was inspiring me at the moment, what the muses were calling for, and honestly, I feel like I’ve been five people since we first spoke, and it’s still the same somehow. It’s funny how much you change in a 10-year span.”
The Past Is Still Alive certainly reflects that journey and the emotional changes with personal lyrics that chronicle the changes and the characters who have also impacted Segarra’s life, such as the first trans woman Segarra ever met (‘Hawkmoon’), romance (‘Vetiver’), and life’s crossroads (‘Snake Plant’). There is also a pointed political reference to a mass shooting in ‘Colossus of Roads.’
“When I first ran away, I met a woman named Ms. Jonathan, who was a trans woman,” recalls Segarra. “She was just like another runaway kid, probably only a couple of years older than me, and we became fast friends and were inseparable for probably only a month. I’d just been really thinking about her. I’d been thinking about her for years and just really trying to find the words to honor her and to really examine how important that time with her was for me.
“I felt like it finally all came together. The language finally came to me, and it felt really good to just acknowledge that even though I wasn’t quite ready or I didn’t quite understand how important our time together was, it took me years later to see it and also to acknowledge that even if your time with someone is limited, it doesn’t make the relationship any less important. I think that’s another kind of queering of relationship and a queering of time that is really fascinating to me right now. These short relationships are very important. We’re taught that they’re disposable, but Ms. Jonathan really had a huge impact on my life, and I still feel her presence.”
“‘Colossus’ I wrote after hearing about a shooting that happened at a gay nightclub in Colorado,” explains Segarra. “It was a very devastating moment, just feeling the exhaustion of so much loss and so much violence. I had been doing this practice of taking in a lot of beautiful things, a lot of art that I felt was very rich and important to me. So, I have this collage or memory box of references that I’d been thinking about, and the song came to me very quickly.
“It really was just me trying to create a short moment, like a three-minute moment that was just creating a place of peace. I don’t know what the word would be, but I just wanted to create this moment in time where I’m looking at this beautiful thing. Look at this beautiful book of poetry by Eileen Myles. Look at this railroad graffiti by this mysterious artist named buZ Blurr. Also, I thought about moments in my life that I felt like were creating a moment of freedom. I think that’s what it is: trying to create a short moment of freedom, even if it’s passing by, it’s still really, really potent.”
“I think more than anything, I love a title that has many different meanings and one meaning,” explains Segarra. “Especially spending so many years in Louisiana and really learning from the activists there and learning that ignoring the history of land, of our country, of what someone has been through is not the way.
“So, to say that the past is still alive is my way of saying that we can’t just ignore it out of existence. It’ll always be there. So, definitely there’s that meaning. Then also there’s this meaning of all the people that I’ve lost in my life and all the people that the listener has lost or the moments that have passed by, and to just have this understanding that those people are still with us in a way, or those moments still exist in a way the energy is still with us.
“So, it’s also a way of trying to understand my relationship with grief, my journey with grief. I think a lot of this record is me really grappling with what it means to lose someone or what it means to lose a moment or a time in your life. I think I’ve always struggled with time – with linear time, I should say. I’ve always felt like this doesn’t make sense. I don’t understand how this is working. So, I think this record is me really diving into that and getting under the hood of that.”
Segarra has called the latest album “Grief Folk.” What exactly does that mean?
“I am obsessed with grief now that I’ve experienced it in this way,” says Segarra. “I think it’s really mind-boggling that we don’t talk about it more. It’s just such a huge part of being a human being, and there are so many sides to it. I feel like I’m still very early on in my grief as well. I think it’s so true what they say, that it has no timeline. It doesn’t obey linear time. But in some ways, I do feel like I can go back to functioning in this material world. I can get places on time. I can talk to people without crying, stuff like that, but it still doesn’t feel like it is obeying the timeline, which I really respect, and I think is really powerful.
“I think another reason why I’m so obsessed with grief is because I think it’s so important just learning that it’s a reflection or it’s another expression of love. I felt like it was a punishment because of the suffering. But also expressing the grief is just expressing how much I loved and I love my dad. I think that really fascinates me – that feeling that we’re not supposed to talk about people anymore or talk about the many people we’ve lost or make people uncomfortable. I just think that’s so bad for us. It seems like poison. So, a big thing for me with this record is riding with the grief, having it be medicine.”
One of the things that has helped Segarra deal with grief is living in New Orleans, a place where deaths are celebrated with second-line street parades. So many musicians arrive in New Orleans never to leave.
“It’s a very difficult place to leave, that’s for sure,” admits Segarra. “It runs on its own clock. That’s really a wonderful thing about it. I’m on the road mostly, so coming home to a place that’s very relaxed and allows an equal amount of celebration and rest is really amazing. It’s definitely not a hustle place, and I’ve just made so many lifelong friends there and learned how to play music there. So, it’s a very, very special place where you start to become accustomed to that lifestyle. There are so many other cities that if you want to live there, it’s very difficult to be a working artist in.”
“It’s definitely a place that allows for self-exploration,” continues Segarra. “I think there are these pockets, especially all over the United States – I don’t know what it’s like in Australia – but places that are very welcoming towards people who feel like they don’t belong in these very conservative cultures, these very restrictive, overly religious places. So, New Orleans is one of these places in the South where people flock to be free to try to create some sort of freedom and community. I think creating family is a very big part of the city, while also there’s this culture of people who are from there and are generationally tied to the city. So, it’s this really interesting mix of people who are coming and casting away the past and looking to start fresh. Then also there are people who are very proud of coming from New Orleans and keeping up tradition. So, it’s a really interesting mixture of tradition and newness.
“Of course, music is a part of everyday life there. So, it’s really wonderful to be around, but it’s not just focused on industry or making money; it’s about ritual. So, it feels a lot more human in that way.”
As for the rest of the United States, Segarra says, “It’s a really scary time to be here, and it’s been very scary for a while now. I feel like what I learned in the past since 2016 is taking it slow is very important, and breathing is very important, and trying to stay grounded in the fear of it all.”
Hurray For The Riff Raff will be appearing at Out On The Weekend this weekend as well as doing other gigs. Check: Love Police Tours