Chicago singer-songwriter Tatiana Hazel knows how to write a breakup song. Lyrically, she has a gift for exposing toxic fuckboy behavior with surgeon-like precision, and the brilliance of an operating room lamp. She is also able to turn that same flood of clarity on herself, resulting in a thorough and stunning romantic post mortem. However, for her latest track, premiering today on Remezcla, the independent artist has taken a refreshingly different approach to the theme of a relationship’s end.
“No Me Encuentras” is a three-minute dance pop sugar-high that she calls “a happy break up song.” Indeed, it might be the happiest thing you’ll hear this year. With synths fit for an early Madonna single married to a steady dembow-meets-cumbia rhythm of Tatiana’s own invention, the track spirals up and away as she sings “Esta noche será tuya/Esta noche será mía” in the chorus. Her vocals are indie-pop breathy, but there’s a lot of reggaetonera flow in her fast-talking delivery. It’s a song for hitting the dance floor to celebrate newfound freedom from couplehood, if ever there was one.
“The message is that you don’t have to be sad. We each can go and do our own thing now. Let’s just be happy that we had that time,” the 21-year-old musician says in a phone interview. “I feel like we should look at relationships as a positive experience or a learning experience, but focus on ourselves first and foremost,” she continues. It’s a concept she wishes more people – and pop songs – could embrace. While we might not all feel ready to take such a highly evolved stance on affairs of the heart, the breezy-yet-beat-driven tune makes her manifesto of going separate ways joyfully sound very convincing.