Krista

Krista is a Brooklyn-born singer, songwriter and musician whose work combines rap, rock and hip hop with big beats, melody, strong vocal lines and live instrumentation. The name is used by more than one act: one is a one-off collaboration between Vex Ruffin and James Pants that releases the single Space Tom Test in 2013, and another is the Brooklyn artist described here, who is associated with an 80s avant garde note in the available information.

Background

She grows up in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, and comes from a Puerto Rican father and Italian mother. Her upbringing in a neighbourhood shaped by cultural identity leaves her both connected to and alienated by her mixed-race background. She draws heavily on her own life in her writing, including experiences of family tension, alienation, trust and trying to fit in. Her parents divorce when she is four, and she is raised mainly by her father and grandmother in a low-income area of Brooklyn.

She describes her childhood as difficult. Her father works long hours, her grandmother is strict and conservative, and she grows up without a realistic female role model. As a teenager she struggles with friendship and behaviour, gets into graffiti, fights and running away from home, and keeps diaries and poetry books as a private outlet. She also drops out of high school at 16 to focus on music and art.

Style and influences

Krista’s music is a blend of street-level rap and more melodic, soaring singing. She mixes bedroom beats with live instruments and moves between boastful rhyming and songs about alienation and suffering, sometimes within the same track. Her influences range from Tupac and Biggie to Evanescence, Linkin Park, Celine Dion and Sarah McLachlan.

Career development

Her break comes when she meets producer and music industry veteran Camus Celli at age 16 after a hardcore show for Suicide City, a side project of Biohazard’s Billy Graziadei, who introduces them. Celli becomes her producer and mentor, signs her to his Vel Records as its hallmark act, and works with her for two years to develop her sound through studio experimentation. She later auditions for Clive Davis, who signs her after recognising her talent.

She sees the process of finding her style as gradual and collaborative, and describes Celli’s support as giving her the confidence to present herself fully in the studio. She also says that people from her neighbourhood recognise that she is different and capable of doing something positive with her life.

Releases

Her debut album is tentatively titled Taking Back Brooklyn.