INTERVIEW | LIANNA (@Liannamusic) ‘MUSIC IS SO IMPORTANT TO CONNECT PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD’

This sum­mer, I Am Hip Hop had the chance to speak with Colom­bi­an music artist, Lianna, dur­ing her vis­it to Lon­don to per­form in the capital.

Lianna is an artist who com­bines hip hop and soul with Lat­in Amer­ic­an sounds to express her mes­sage through her calm­ing vocals.

The sing­er moved to Colombia’s cap­it­al, Bogota while pur­su­ing her jour­ney as a musi­cian. Music has how­ever been in the blood of her fam­ily as she recalls music­al memor­ies as a child in her homet­own of Medellin.

”Music has always been a part of me as my fath­er sings and plays the gui­tar.” Lianna shared,

“The intro of my album is me singing with my dad and this is some­thing we have been doing since I was born. My dad always sang in styles such as bolero, tango and all sorts of oth­er Lat­in Amer­ic­an music, along with that he used to build gui­tars so music has always been in my life.”

The album that Lianna men­tions is her new­est pro­ject, ’Como el Agua’. The eth­er­e­al LP was released this April and holds fea­tures from some of Colombia’s most tal­en­ted bub­bling under artists such as N. Hardem, who we also inter­viewed earli­er this year.

“In this album, I wanted to bring in fla­vours that impacted me such as those from Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu, then mix them with a Lat­in sound for my people” Lianna continued.

“Now I am glad to be an inde­pend­ent artist in a new move­ment of hip hop and music in Colom­bia. I fell in love with hip hop when I was young as the hon­esty and rhythm hit me hard. There is a song by Lauryn Hill called ‘Like Water’ and this album is inspired from that.”

Inspir­a­tions of Lauryn Hill and Erykah Badu are def­in­itely found with­in this album but Lianna also shared who else she admires with­in the hip hop scene.

“Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole are def­in­itely oth­er inspir­a­tions, I also can’t leave out Nas as Ill­mat­ic is the bible! Alto­geth­er though, my favour­ite rap­per is Mos Def. If I could pick one artist in his­tory to work with, it would be him. He can sing, rap and do everything!

What I love about hip hop is that that you can listen to it at one stage of your life and enjoy it one way but when you come back to it at anoth­er stage of your life, you can appre­ci­ate it in a whole dif­fer­ent way.”

There are also plenty of tal­ents in the United King­dom that Lianna has love for all the way from the oth­er side of the pond.

“Most of what I listen to at the moment is from the UK. Artists such as NAO, Jorja Smith and Sinead Hart­nett are people I would love to work with but there are so many oth­ers and I keep dis­cov­er­ing more and more. There are a lot of artists that I dis­cov­er in Colom­bia but then I find out that they are from the UK!”

Lianna hopes to use her music to com­mu­nic­ate pos­it­iv­ity around the whole globe in an age that she feels needs it the most.

“We are in a good time in terms of music where we can listen to artists around the world that we could not hear from in the past. Now I get to con­nect with people around the world and make music that I love. Colom­bi­an hip hop is get­ting big­ger under the sur­face and I am so proud to be part of it, it motiv­ates me to keep doing it.

The best thing I can give to people is my music and it is import­ant to build to bridges around the world, espe­cially in a time where soci­ety is the way it is right now. Soci­ety is mak­ing people ignor­ant but music is so import­ant to break walls and con­nect people.”

Como el Agua is avail­able now on all stream­ing and down­load plat­forms. Keep up to date with Lianna on her Ins­tagram.