She may be young, but Quelle Rox is well-versed in chronicling matters of the heart. The R&B-meets-dream pop artist’s songs are intensely absorbing: her internal monologues are all too relatable, and she makes sure every one of her innermost feelings is felt. She’s not aloof about deeply unrequited love. Her confessionals spill out against blissfully jazzy, sax-heavy interludes and walls of thick, wobbly guitars in songs that shift from vintage R&B and psychedelic dream pop specially crafted in her bedroom and fall somewhere between the sonic trifecta of Men I Trust, Mac DeMarco, and The Marias. Over a Zoom call with Remezcla, she mentions the names of two tracks that have been on heavy rotation lately — Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’s “Tracks of My Tears” and Nina Simone’s rendition of “The Other Woman” — and how they’ve influenced her forthcoming EP entitled Midnight Blue.
“You just really feel the emotion. It’s so genuine. It’s all straight from the heart. I don’t want to create something I don’t feel connected to or didn’t experience, and listening to that is so inspiring because of how raw it is. It’s cool to see how people back then went through the same thing,” she says. “It felt like they were really making music because it didn’t feel like it was being made; they were just heartbroken.”
Despite Quelle Rox’s cosmic-sounding dreamscapes shaped by the classics, her music also has plenty of grit and grime. She is not above recognizing only wanting someone when she’s messed up, and she’ll tear a trifling old flame to shreds if need be. “Coffee and a cig, I got the blues,” she coos on the 2021 single “coffee & a cig” before quickly doling out a series of thorny one-liners, “and if I had a tattoo with your name on it, it’d say ‘fuck you’/Baby, you’re the shit/not in a good way/more like you take up space, gettin’ in my way.”
Originally hailing from Fort Lauderdale, FL, the Cuban-Puerto Rican singer and songwriter (who also goes by Rocky) grew up in a close-knit and encouraging family. Long before she was old enough to put pen to paper, Rocky would sing to her mom, who then would try to decipher it and write down some of her earliest songs (“I was like two years old,” she swears). She was also raised on the eclectic musical taste of her mother. El Gran Combo, Marc Anthony, and Gloria Estefan often soundtracked her childhood, but Rox also grew to appreciate classics like The Temptations, Earth Wind and Fire, and Smokey Robinson.
“I went to my first Aventura concert with my mom, and [it] was amazing. She had great taste. We still listen to music together,” she says. “I also listened to a lot of Don Omar. I loved Tego Calderon and Ivy Queen. It was also very hip-hop and rap-heavy, regionally [in Florida]. Stuff like G-Unit, Ying Yang Twinz, Yung Joc… that style of music would be playing whenever I would go out to skating rinks or like teen clubs on Saturdays.”
At 18, Rocky left South Florida to attend NYU in New York City, which she shares was a lonely time for her at first. “When I moved, I didn’t have friends. It took me a while to get immersed in the scene. She shares, “I wasn’t used to it. I went from being with my family all the time to realizing I was pretty much alone.” Around this time, she began experimenting with producing via programs like Ableton, working towards what would eventually become some of her debut tracks like 2018’s “Dream Daisies” and “Tired.” “My music career kinda got started after I graduated. At that point, I didn’t even have any music out, but I saw that I had to stay here and realize my dream,” Rocky adds.
As Rox continued honing in on songwriting and production, an unexpected opportunity arose to grace a significant local stage. In 2019, she received a phone call from folks who had put together a sold-out anniversary show at the beloved Baby’s All Right with Montreal-based ex-Mac DeMarco collaborator HOMESHAKE as its headliner, and they were on the hunt for an opening act.
My music career kinda got started after I graduated. At that point, I didn’t even have any music out, but I saw that I had to stay here and realize my dream,
“It was crazy! They called me maybe two days before. I had never even performed, unlike a live show in New York. I didn’t even have a band and had to put [one] together. I think I ended up just doing drum and bass live, and it worked out. It’s still one of my favorite shows so far. I kept playing at Baby’s All Right and started frequenting it more. Places like Elsewhere and Sultan Room are [Brooklyn] venues [where] I’ve played, but then I would just go out there and start to meet people. They became my music community [and] my music friends. I’m happy with where I’ve come from, from not having anyone to finding people who love doing this and are kind and supportive, but like with anything, it took a while,” she shares.
Since then, Rox has released a pretty sizable catalog of songs steeped in a melancholic haze (2022’s Glitter Tears EP) and projects with more raw, abrasive atmospheres dripping with trip-hop overtones (2021’s coffee & a cig EP). “I think that for the early stuff, I was really depressed,” she admits. “I was really sad and heartbroken and lonely. That shined through, and that’s not to say that it doesn’t still exist, but I feel there has been growth within me, with recognizing my self-worth and what I want out of life and trying to stay away from things that aren’t good for me. Whereas before, I was stuck in that loop. Those kinds of things are hard to stay away from.”
Quelle Rox joins a long list of women across all genres — SZA, Liz Phair, Kali Uchis, Mitski, Yebba, and most recently, artists like Lola Young — who artfully alchemize their pain when heartbroken. In Rox’s universe, the subjects are two-timing exes, fuckboys who think they have the upper hand, the “casi algos” that keep her up at night, or like in her latest single, “apareces de la nada,” the toxic dudes who suddenly reappear out of thin air once you’ve kept your distance.
“When you’re pulling away, and they feel like your energy is detaching from their loop or orbit, they have to come and assert themselves in your picture and your story again… It’s about realizing, ‘No, I don’t wanna play this anymore, and I know que no vale la pena.’ I know that every single time, [going back to that person] is not worth it,” the singer-songwriter explains. “Like… you’re showing up, and that ain’t cool.” She laughs and shakes her head. “You’ve gotta go bye-bye. Let me do my healing! Let me heal in peace!”
Photography: April Nicole
Makeup: Daniela Martinez
Written By: Nayeli Portillo
Editor in Chief: Thatiana Diaz
Editor: Erika Ramirez
Creative Director: Alan López
Social Media Manager: Alma Sacasa
Director of Talent Relations & Executive Producer: Joel Moya
