There are artists who are born from a silent room, with a guitar, a trembling voice and an open wound. Rafael Stonne is one of them. From São Paulo, this young Brazilian musician has built an intimate and enveloping universe where folk, lo-fi, emotional pop and even piseiro fit. All from the radical honesty of someone who sings what happens to him, what he doesn't understand, what hurts.
With his new album Dentro Do Meu Peito, Rafael shows a creative maturity that does not leave out tenderness. It is an album made of flesh and atmosphere, where the body and the ethereal meet to talk about love, loss, mourning, connection.
In this conversation, designed especially for those in Mexico who still don't know him, Stonne talks about his beginnings, the silences he needs to compose, his favorite poets (and friends), his love for C. Tangana and Silvio Rodríguez, and what he hopes to find in this part of the world. It is an interview about making music as one who delivers an open letter to the heart of another.
-Pamela RM
Your music is born in Brazil, in Portuguese, with that intimate and confessional violão. What do you think can touch Mexican audiences, even without speaking their language?
I think what can touch the Mexican public is the truth that I bring with my art and my work. It's so intimate that people come to my profile and feel comfortable to talk and tell me something. They feel part of it, and indeed they are!
From the CASA EP (2015) to CAPA (2019) and the album Dentro Do Meu Peito (2024, how do you feel you have evolved emotionally and sonically in that journey?
CASA comes from my first contact with music and music production, which was all done in my room. CAPA brings a bit of that intimacy, but in a way that I'm more open to try new things, like producing remotely and with electronic elements, although still inside the cocoon, let's say, haha.
Then comes my most recent work, Dentro Do Meu Peito, which is a more complete album, it was a process of a year and a half until it was born. This album shows more than ever my evolution as an artist, both emotionally - where I expose my wounds - and sonically, where I explore different genres such as piseiro, pop, rap, and I even dared to sing in Spanish in the song “Meu xodó”, which is one of my favorites. I say that this work is more mature, both visually, as well as in the music, lyrics and even in the final decisions I made for the album.
“Canceriano”, “Só o Tempo”, “Pede Pra Ficar”: they are songs with strong marks of MPB, folk and lo-fi. If you had to choose one that most represents you today, which one would it be and why?
Of those three, the one that represents me the most is “Cancerian”, because I am a Cancerian and because it is very rich to play in the shows.
The rhythm and soundscape are often born from the environment. How does your life in São Paulo influence your music? And what do you hope to find in Mexico to nurture your next stage?
Although I live in São Paulo, I am further away from the center, so my environment is calmer, quieter. That allows me to listen better to what is inside. I think that quietness helps me to compose with more presence, with more space to feel.
The city still crosses me, of course, but in a more subtle way: like the light of the sunset on distant buildings, the distant sound of movement, time passing slowly in the quieter neighborhoods. That less obvious, more introspective São Paulo ends up being the backdrop for my songs.
Now, in Mexico, I hope to find other shades of sensitivity. It is a country full of soul, color and intensity, and I love that. I have the feeling that there I will have access to a more spiritual part of my creation, more dedicated. I also want to allow myself to be touched by people, especially music artists.
Your style mixes traditional folk with floating, electronic - almost ethereal - textures. How do you find the balance between the atmospheric and what is flesh, voice, skin?
I think this balance comes from the need to play and be played. The atmospheric side allows me to travel, to create spaces where the music breathes, but it is the voice and the violão that brings me back to earth. I like that tension between the ethereal and the intimate, it's as if the electronic texture creates the sky and the organic part is the body lying down looking at it.
Everything I write is born from something that burns, that pulses. So, even if the production takes you to the air, the root of the music is always in the touch, in the flesh, in what is alive.
You have presented some songs in acoustic versions, such as “Cancerian”. What changes, what is released when you are live, in front of an audience?
When I'm live, especially in more acoustic versions like “Cancerian”, everything becomes more naked. There is no production to hide anything, just the song, my voice and what I am feeling at that moment. It's like I'm delivering an open letter to whoever is there.
For someone who listens to you for the first time -and doesn't understand Portuguese- what verse or melody would you recommend to feel your essence, even without understanding the lyrics?
I would recommend three songs: “Dentro do Meu Peito”, which is where it all started; “Você pra mim”, which reminds me a lot of when I started solo with voice and violão; and finally, the interlude “</3”, where I expose myself emotionally like nowhere else.
In the world of streaming and algorithms, how do you take care of the emotional pulse of your music without falling into the predictable or commercial?
See, I don't think about it much... or I think unconsciously. I just do, haha. But yes, some thing or other ends up being more commercial, and I don't see that as a negative thing.
What comes after Dentro Do Meu Peito - is there a dream, phrase or sonority that you haven't yet put into a song but are dying to explore?
Good question, haha. I don't know what's coming yet. I'm focused on another project called “Dois Mares” that I have with my friend Sam.
Sometimes something comes to my mind... maybe go back to the voice and the violão, together with the Spanish. I have no doubts about that. But there are no concrete plans for now.
Do you have a favorite poet, verse, book or writer that has influenced your songwriting?
I am more of a musician than a poet, although both things go hand in hand. What influences me most in my songs are my own experiences and friends and people close to my reality.
There is a writer and a writer I am devouring right now: bell hooks and Abdias Nascimento.
Do you usually listen to Spanish-language music and is there a Latin American artist or album that accompanies or inspires you?
Yes, I listen to a lot of Spanish music. I like how the language has a musicality of its own. Some Latin American artists really get through to me: Rosalía, for her boldness in mixing tradition with the new; Silvio Rodríguez, for his way of writing as if he reads one's soul; and finally, there's one that doesn't leave my ears in any way: C. Tangana. I am absolutely in love with his work, both visually and musically.
Born and raised in the west end of Itapevi, São Paulo, with 29 years old, Rafael Stonne has been a singer and composer since he was 16 years old, at the age of 15 his mother gave him a violin, since then he became fond of music and never left again.