We’re obsessing over: Sabrina Claudio’s sound, style, and storytelling

I have this habit of just letting my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify play in the background while I declutter my space and jam to new music that I usually find to be to my taste. The last time I did this, I heard a series of songs from one artist named Sabrina Claudio.

Two years ago, I was totally fixated on Dua Lipa, but now that she went mainstream, I’m no longer as obsessed. I feel the same new obsession developing again with Claudio this time. The 22-year-old American singer-songwriter started to build her career by uploading some of her songs on SoundCloud, and in March of 2017, she released her first album Confidently Lost.

This is first song of hers that I downloaded: “Too Much Too Late.” If it doesn’t grab you at first listen, then Claudio may not be your kind of artist, because this cut is pretty good introduction to the kind of music she makes:

If you enjoyed it, though, here are three more tracks from her:

One thing I find really interesting about Claudio’s songwriting style is how she doesn’t base her lyrics on her own experiences. In an interview with radio station Beats 1, she admitted to writing songs based on the experiences of the people close to her and would like to think of herself as a storyteller. That doesn’t take away the fact that she’s good. Sometimes we need our stories to be told by someone else, not because we can’t tell them ourselves but because other people can have more effective ways of sharing them through their own artistry.

Claudio’s vibe also speaks a lot to me. Alternative R&B with Latin influences is my kind of jam: breathy, laid-back, sexy, but still groovy enough for Rihanna’s lazy-sexy dance steps techniques, which I too sometimes enjoy. I am also a fan of her aesthetic, which is tastefully sensual and artsy at the same time, and her typical get-up of slip/body con dresses and lace in a nude palette. They all tie in with her sound.