Two rising stars finally cross orbits in “Problema,” the newest single from Puerto Rican soul-trap crooner Gyanma, who invited the red-hot RaiNao to lend her vocals and gravitas to the track.
Produced by Gyanma alongside RaiNao’s frequent team of Giova, Barba Blanca, and Wiso Rivera, the track is inspired by the Neo-soul grooves of one of Gyanma’s idols, D’Angelo, but injected with some Latine trap flair and harmonies.
The song has been cooking for over a year, with Gyanma first conceiving it as an unofficial follow-up to one of RaiNao’s earlier efforts, her 2020 chill-R&B bop “Celular.”
“I thought of it as an answer to that song; like, how would the man on the other side of that scenario reply to her character,” Gyanma tells Remezcla exclusively. “She’s teasing and tempting him while he’s trying to stay out of trouble.”
He’d discovered RaiNao, as most people discover new artists nowadays, on Spotify back then. Through mutual friends, he got in touch with her, and therein began a reciprocal admiration for each other’s music and work ethic. All eyes have been on RaiNao in the recent months following her performance at Bad Bunny’s Un Verano Sin Ti concert in Puerto Rico back in August.
RaiNao, for one, was quickly swayed to hop onto the project. “I’ve been a fan of Gyanma’s music from the beginning. He’s a singer, he’s a producer, and he had most of this song already locked when he first showed it to me,” she says. They recorded her part and finessed the last details in the studio.
Revealing herself as an even more multifaceted talent than already obvious, RaiNao wrote and directed the accompanying music video as well. Filmed at Eres, a popular San Juan independent art gallery, it portrays Gyanma as torn over his attraction to RaiNao because he knows she’s bad news. For her part, she leans into her role and stalks him, knowing she has him in the palm of her hand and enjoys control. Crumbling under pressure, Gyanma ends up following her once again, unable to resist. He’s got 99 problems, but she’s his favorite.
The originality behind this project wasn’t the only draw for these two rising artists but their natural desire to want to support one another. “Beyond doing things because they sound like cool ideas, it’s even better to do them because you genuinely support the artists and what they bring to the table,” she tells Remezcla. “I haven’t done many collabs so far because, while there’s lots of talent, I know not everyone’s style fits with mine, and I know Gyanma feels the same way, so that drew us together.”
Watch the premiere of “Problema” here:
