Into The Music
Hurray for the Riff Raff is the project of New Orleans-based singer and songwriter Alynda Segarra, and it has been one of the more consistently interesting voices in American roots music for over a decade. Segarra, who grew up in the Bronx and moved to New Orleans as a teenager to busk and make music, has built a catalog that refuses the genre boundaries that most roots music artists accept as natural.
The early albums, released in the 2010s, were more directly folk and country-influenced. Life on Earth in 2022 was the most significant departure: a conceptual album built around environmental crisis and indigenous experience, with production that incorporated synthesizers and electronic textures that the earlier work would not have accommodated. It received significant critical attention and represented a clear statement of purpose.
Segarra writes from a political perspective that is consistent and explicit without being reductive. The songs address environmental destruction, displacement, and identity with a specificity that prevents them from becoming slogans. They are, first, songs with melodies and structures that work independently of their content. The content gives them additional weight.
Hurray for the Riff Raff is the kind of project that attracts listeners who are tired of music that does not seem to know what it is for. Segarra has always known what the music is for and has been willing to change the form it takes while keeping the purpose consistent. That combination is rarer than it should be.
