Diandra Interviews Sie7e: Finding GAIA In Sound And Society

 Sie7e’s GAIA captures the essence of Spanish Reggae; to cleanse the earth. Like sage, this genre uses its relaxing rhythms and socio-political verses to awaken people’s hearts, bodies, and minds. In GAIA, Sie7e’s hope if to awaken people to Climate Change and the negative effects of capitalist mentalities such as greed is good, fast food is fine, and corporations are human. In our interview, he speaks to his passion for humanity, and how he hopes his music pushes people to feel passionate for it, as well. 

Diandra: Why did you call the album GAIA?

Sie7e: This album is about the real relationship we have with this magnificent earth. We think she belong to us, but we belong to her. GAIA, the song, is the most activist track in the album and has the most urgency. There is a line that says “hell smells like plastic and cement.” There are lines that very specific that speak to our relationships with animals and land and even each other, and how we treat everything as disposable. 
Sie7e & The Islanauts – Mi Mantra (Mood Video)

Diandra: There is a very “Utopia” vibe to the album; as if you are trying to awaken people. 

Sie7e: Definitely! I think we are part of the problem without knowing it. There are so many things that are systemic: how we treat women, racism, and even animals. These constant treatment of certain groups as disposable. We recorded this album in 2018, and we did not know when to release it. Besides being an independent artist, there are a lot of systemic issues in the music world. I wanted to create a message that could reach people. 

Diandra: Well, its release feels timely. 

Sie7e: I think people had more time, and did not want to hear, necessarily, what they heard on the beach. They wanted something more intimate that made them think. 

Diandra: So it was kismet? 

Sie7e: (he laughs) I kind of want to call it luck; although it came out in the middle of one of the worst times for humanity. Yet, this album is about connecting and reminding people that humanity is a team. We have to work together, and there are so many tiny decisions we can make, in every day life, to to help each other. We are in the middle of an information war; people making a lot of money off our current way of life is, do not want change. They have lost grasp of reality and how we live, even if is profitable for them, is not sustainable for all of us. We get really distracted by so much: from social media to politicians doing stupid things. They are apart of the problem. 
GAIA (Introducción)

Diandra: The pandemic definitely cut people off from distractions. 

Sie7e: It is good for people to get perspective. It showed people that a lot of their life is a luxury. Yet, I can’t believe people are complaining they can’t get haircuts.  So many have lost so much. 

Diandra: Where do you feel, this moment, places you as an artist? 

Sie7e: I don’t really know, right now, because I am at a crossroads. The minute I realized I cannot make music without being an activist, everything in my life got so complicated because everything is built to be the other way around. When I broke up with the label, it was so hard, because they were like family. But they told me, “People don’t want to hear about that. They want to hear about parties.” But let us sing to reality! Life is happy, but it gets sad and it gets hard. I compare the music industry, right now, to the food industry. Economic equations created the food industry to form fast food and the same thing with fashion. It became about cheap and fast. It was not about health, in the same way that music in not about honesty. Now, it is about getting many streams and more royalties. There are more broke musicians than wealthy ones. 

Diandra: Do you feel like music is already glamorous; so let the artist bring the raw truth to it? 

Sie7e: Yeah! I just want to bring honesty. I want to sing the truth. My brother is an amazing filmmaker in Puerto Rico, and it did well, but not as well as expected because the film did not have the “certain way” to get backing. The same thing goes in music. It takes a lot of money to distribute and promote a song so when you propose something different, it is treated as invisible. 
Sie7e & The IslaNauts – CocoMangó (Official Video)

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