When Gigi Perez took to the stage on the Austin Metropolis Limits Pageant earlier this month, it felt just like the universe was holding up a mirror, reflecting again all the expansion she’d carried out within the 4 years since her final efficiency there.
Again in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted report deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles — the wistful acoustic guitar monitor “Generally (Backwood)” and the devastatingly uncooked “Celene.” The 2021 version of ACL was the primary competition she ever carried out, and although her early afternoon slot at one of many smaller phases attracted just a few dozen viewers members, Perez had spent so a few years dreaming of the chance that it didn’t matter. She was completely happy simply to be there.
This month, Perez returned to Austin now not an rising artist, however as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick people ballad from 2024, “Sailor Music,” had topped the U.Ok. singles chart and earned greater than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the again of its success, she spent the primary half of this 12 months opening for Hozier in help of her 2025 debut LP, “On the Seashore, in Each Life.”
So when she took the stage at ACL in October, this time it was for a coveted golden hour set, with a sea of individuals stretched out earlier than her — and a refrain of voices singing alongside to her each phrase.
“It was magical,” Perez instructed De Los. “There have been individuals there who had been really at my first set in 2021, standing within the entrance. It meant so much to me. I feel that there’s a shock that I nonetheless expertise with individuals coming to my set at a competition.”
At 25 years previous, Perez has lived extra life than most. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Seashore, Fla., the singer grew up in a devoutly Christian Cuban family, the center baby of three sisters.
As a teen, the spiritual values she’d been steeped in had been starting to conflict along with her personal realizations about her sexuality — and music supplied a lifeline. The queer artists she listened to, like Hayley Kiyoko and Troye Sivan, tapped into emotions she hadn’t been in a position to articulate, and impressed her to put in writing music that may enable her to precise them in her personal phrases.
At 18, simply as she was getting ready to go to the Berklee Faculty of Music in Boston, her grandmother and uncle handed away, simply weeks other than one another. These twin losses set off a wave of grief and sparked troublesome questions on her religion. She was struggling to regain her footing over the subsequent 12 months when, simply months into the pandemic, her household skilled the sudden lack of her older sister Celene.
Perez felt unmoored. Her entire life, Celene had been a north star, a guiding mild who impressed her to take up music, and who wished to be a singer herself. Perez did what she knew how: wove her ache and anger and devastation into music, writing the soul-stirring tribute, “Celene.”
“The opposite day, I considered one thing humorous, however nobody would’ve laughed however you,” she sings. “And mother and pop are all the time crying. And I want I knew what to do.”
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Her first unique songs gained traction on TikTok, getting the eye of Interscope Data. From there, her profession started to take off. She opened for Coldplay and Noah Cyrus, releasing her first EP, “The best way to Catch a Falling Knife,” in April 2023. Then, simply months right into a string of performances scheduled in London that summer time, the label launched her from her contract.
“I keep in mind simply being dumbfounded,” she stated. “It was this speedy, very deep sense of concern and failure.”
However the humorous factor about grief — that all-consuming drive that had dragged her out to sea a number of occasions during the last a number of years — was that as suffocating because it might be, it was additionally stunning and unpredictable. So regardless of the depth of sophisticated feelings washing over her, Perez was acutely conscious that this information was nothing in comparison with the lack of her sister. “So many issues that occur in my life don’t have an effect on me in that very same profound manner,” she stated. “That was one of many issues that made me. I don’t know, it’s exhausting to search out the phrases even now.”
Rising up, Celene had her sights set on Broadway. She launched Gigi to a number of musicals, from a bootleg model of “Legally Blonde,” to her first reside theater expertise in “Depraved,” to the solid album of Lin–Manuel Miranda’s “Within the Heights.” They performed one tune from the soundtrack, “Breathe,” on repeat. It’s sung by the character Nina, the daughter of immigrants in Washington Heights, who returns dwelling in disgrace after having to drop out of Stanford College.
“That’s how I used to be feeling on the time,” Perez professed.
In London, she listened to the tune on repeat. Then, she began writing. From the start, her type has all the time been instinctual; a freeform jam session the place she sits on the piano or along with her guitar and simply lets her concepts circulate out. The title got here to her first — “On the Seashore, in Each Life” — and the tune poured out of her, almost phrase for phrase.
“I keep in mind the primary time I performed these chords on the piano, I had no thought what was going to occur,” she stated. “I simply knew one thing was opening up inside me, however I had no thought how deep the effectively was going to be, or that I used to be going to be an artist who will get to journey the world. I simply had these needs, these visions, however to actually reside it’s one thing else.”
After ending out her commitments within the U.Ok., she moved again dwelling to Florida. From her childhood bed room, she started to rebuild. She taught herself music manufacturing and stored writing extra songs. With out meaning to, the puzzle items of the previous couple of years of her life started to fall into place, and the grief that had consumed a lot of her story lastly had an outlet.
“On the Seashore, In Each Life” particulars a breaking down of Perez’s partitions. Her unhappiness and remorse washes over tracks like “Sugar Water” and “Crown,” constructing into fiery ardour on “Chemistry” and “Sailor Music,” earlier than cresting into the haunting decision of the title monitor that closes it out. It’s a portrait of loss and craving, made up of vivid recollections from her childhood, her household, and her earlier relationships. In brief, it’s the album she needs she may’ve listened to 5 years in the past when her ache appeared insurmountable.
“I had simply been working blind for therefore lengthy,” she stated. “With the ability to share my expertise of loss on this particular manner, it’s one thing that my 20-year-old self could be in disbelief of. On the time, it was like being with out air, the isolation was so suffocating.”
Not way back, Perez’s unhappiness may generally make her self-conscious. She wished to share what she was going by, however she additionally didn’t wish to be outlined by it. “I didn’t wish to be that woman who was all the time speaking about her sister, however there was this very real want to cry out for assist, or acknowledge her,” she stated. “Everyone seems to be totally different, however for me, I wanted to acknowledge her to be able to be effectively.”
Followers of Gigi Perez on the barricade throughout her efficiency at this 12 months’s Austin Metropolis Limits Pageant in Austin, Texas.
(Cat Cardenas / For De Los)
Now, not even 5 years later, it appears like she’s lastly turned the web page and began a brand new chapter. “I’ve been in a position to construct a life round my grief, and honor the lack of my sister in a manner that’s helped me,” she stated. “I don’t know precisely what therapeutic ought to seem like, however her dying affected me and continues to have an effect on me in these very profound methods. That is one of the best case state of affairs for me, as a result of I get to share it with others — that’s one of many issues that makes it so troublesome to navigate: the sensation that nobody understands you.”
“Realizing that we’re not alone has actually saved my life,” she stated. “I was the particular person considering, ‘What’s the purpose of being alive?’ However understanding there are different individuals with the identical query, I do know now that we will maintain one another’s arms by that. That’s given me a objective and that helps me proceed to maneuver by it.”
Within the strategy of writing the album, Perez discovered methods to convey each of her sisters alongside for the experience. There are voice memos from Celene, together with a snippet of her singing on “Survivor’s Guilt.” However there’s additionally “Sugar Water,” a monitor she co-wrote along with her youthful sister, Bella, who joins her onstage to carry out the tune on tour. “Anybody who has two sisters is aware of the chaos and depth that may convey,” she stated. “However we liked one another, and we nonetheless do. My relationship to what it means to be a lady was formed by having sisters, and Celene and Bella are the closest reflection that I’ve of myself.”
Amid this wild, nearly unbelievable 12 months, Perez has been grounded by her household’s presence. Her mother is a part of her administration crew, and her dad has joined them on the street.
“There’s one thing to be stated about being in it a lot that it’s nearly exhausting to bodily really feel it on the extent you wish to,” Perez stated. However over the previous couple of weeks, as she’s gotten the chance to revisit the locations the place she first discovered her footing as a performer, she’s had the chance to replicate on simply how a lot she’s grown since then.
For now, she plans on heading again dwelling to Florida as soon as her tour is over to spend time reflecting on all the pieces. “I feel that’s once I’ll begin to see the confetti fall,” she stated. “Life is unsure, and we by no means know what it’s going to throw our manner, however this was a 12 months that I prayed for. And I feel it was a 12 months that lots of people who love me prayed for too. So for that, I’m very grateful.”
