New Music
New Music
New Music: Lao Ra
Our curated picks of the hottest new live acts.
Ticketmaster New Music is a carefully curated selection, showcasing artists we are expecting to make waves in the live music scene. Working closely with record labels, live event promoters and talent agents, our in-house experts handpick the most exciting emerging music.
Columbian-born East London resident and dance-pop singer Lao Ra blends together her roots with contemporary sounds to create a tropical sound built around religion, sexuality and more. Her music is borne out of the disconnect between her dangerous surroundings as a youngster, and the world’s portrayed in music videos.
The US led War On Drugs meant that the Colombian city of Bogota with was a pretty weird place to be growing up towards the end of the 90s. Thankfully for Lao Ra there was MTV.
As the singer/producer told DIY Magazine: “We were kind of aware of what was happening and that Bogotá wasn’t the safest place. But my parents really kept me safe from that part of it.” At the same time lao Ra remembers there was always MTV. “It was being exposed to that crazy, pop surreal world, especially in the mid-’90s! The videos were so fucking crazy!”
Having begun writing songs aged twelve, Lao Ra later seized on an opportunity to move to London and hone her music during which time she held some pretty crazy-ass jobs as she told Hunger TV. “I was a breast model for a plastic surgeons’ class. They paid me really well! £100 to stand topless in a class, people were like “oh can I touch you” I was like, yeah sure!”
Yet Lao Ra still found time in between being a dog-walker, a promo-girl and doing PR for a smoke alarm company to produce music. This included her debut single, Jesus Made Me Bad, which led to a deal with Back Butter Records.
Dropping the EP of the same name in 2016, Lao Ra has unveiled a handful of single tracks since, most recently unveiling her collaboration with Afro B, Me Gusta, and the dancehall inspired No Pressure. Both are testament to her catchy modernisation of latin pop.
Essential Tracks
Her latest No Pressure, released towards the start of 2018, centres around the emotional baggage carried from a previous relationship into the next.
On Me Gusta, Lao Ra teams up with Afro B for a celebration of female sexuality and going after what you want.
Drum Machine propels Lao Ra’s latin vibes to the forefront with its driving beat.
Check back on Ticketmaster.co.uk for Lao Ra live dates.
