MARO
Talks New Music, Vulnerability, and Family
After spending the former part of her year representing her home country of Portugal in arguably the most popular songwriting contest in the world, MARO is finishing the summer off with yet another major accomplishment: her first album release in four years. Her stunning new project, titled can you see me?, was released on August 26th, 2022 and, in conversation with When I Make It To LA, MARO revealed that it’s been a long time coming.
“We [started the album] years ago. And then because of COVID, we had to put a pause on it, so we've been so eager to release it and put it out and let it be not just ours, but of the world.”
If you’ve listened to MARO before, you may see her name and hear soothing Portuguese/English vocals over acoustic guitar instrumentals in your head. And while she continues to deliver more of what we know and love, can you see me? also sees MARO blend new flavors into her music with elements of trap and R&B, which she credits to the joy and freedom behind the songwriting process.
“I got to [create] it with my best friend — he's an amazing producer that discovers all these sounds and brings out all of these ideas in me so I just don't really stop it. I don't say ‘well, no because I do stuff in a more acoustic way.’ [I’m] like ‘whoa, okay, suddenly this is trap.’ And it’s literally so much fun — the whole process we were just like: ‘hell yeah, this is so much fun. Let’s keep going.’”
MARO is no stranger to working with collaborators, nor is she concerned with sticking to any specific genre, as we’ve seen in her features on Jacob Collier’s “Lua” and ODESZA’s “Better Now.” Collaborating, MARO says, is the one aspect of creating music that she loves the most.
“I’m not really the artist who puts my mind into ‘now I’m gonna do this genre.’ I love collaborating with musicians that I admire, who are also people that I love. Even if it’s completely different, when we get together, the person that I’m working with brings out [another] side of me.
Even with her light-hearted, open approach to music-making, MARO has managed to create one of her most personal projects yet. The album is named after its penultimate track, “can you see me?,” which is special to MARO in more ways than one.
“It was the first song I wrote about my grand-dad after he passed away at the end of 2020. The whole Eurovision song was also about my grand-dad because there was a period where I wrote so much about him. Everything I would try and write was immediately about him because he was such a big person in my life.”
The bookends of the album are also deeply personal. The first song, which MARO refers to as “an intro song with a big instrumental, kind of like the Lion King,” features a sample of a less-than-two-year-old MARO singing, which she says serves to introduce the album with her own “introduction to music.”
The last song, “i’m just afraid, i’m so afraid,” dives into topics MARO isn’t used to discussing publicly.
“I think it's the most vulnerable track of the album. It's very special in that way. I think it's the first time I kind of say aloud ‘I'm really afraid of commitment in relationships’ and openly talk about trauma and stuff that I don't share.”
Aside from inspiring the album’s title and intro tracks, MARO’s family played a role in creating the album too.
“Both of my siblings, I have an older sister and a younger brother, sing on like seven of the songs. I was like ‘I don’t care if you go and [sing] an ooo (laughs). You should go and sing.’”
MARO’s family, she says, is her “centerpiece,” and has supported her journey as an artist every step of the way.
“I’m really grateful for the family I’ve had. Everything I do goes back to them.”
Balancing between light-hearted and personal and staying grounded through its experimentation, MARO’s new album is beautifully composed and deserves at least a few listens. When asked about what listeners should consider when experiencing the album, MARO had this to say:
“Some of the songs really came from a deep place and I would love to know that people hear it and feel it the same way and they can somehow really connect with it. But I also really never have expectations. I kind of put it out and be like ‘if you don't like it, it's okay. If you like it and want to make it yours, then it's yours.’ You know? I kind of like that. It's just there.”