Evelyn Detzany: Urban Latin Music and Pop
Vulnerable. Old School. Soul. Culture. This is how singer-songwriter Evelyn Detzany describes her music. She is a Latina musician and a Utah-Native who grew up in Cedar Hills. Evelyn absolutely loves music, and plays a large role in how she communicates with the world. In fact, when she was young, she didn’t communicate at all, to the point that it was believed that she might have had a learning disability. This was soon disproved by one of her first actual sentences--which she sang. As she puts it, “It’s kinda like my main language is music.”, and this statement held true throughout her childhood and into adulthood.
During her sophomore year of high school, she attended a performing arts school in addition to her public school to improve as a singer. During this time, she learned from one of her friends that graduating early to work on her career was an option. To accomplish this, she took online classes to complete her grad requirements and managed to graduate as a junior. She then entered UVU and began to study Music Recording. She believes studying Music Recording will help her communicate with producers and understand the vocabulary surrounding the sounds that she wants to create.
Evelyn has been singing for over 10 years and was invited by a family friend to tour China. This trip was a culture shock for her, but it allowed her to practice her music and perform in places like Shanghai, Nimbo and Beijing. Since her tour in China, she has released two EPs, one called Lavender and another called Fling. Lavender and Fling were a collaborative effort with other artists,
The way that she makes and produces her songs is very true to herself, as she comes up with the progression, lyrics, and melody. She writes her ideas down, almost like a journal, and creates lyrics and sounds that way. This writing process creates a lot of vulnerability in her work, as it is a makeup of her secrets and deepest thoughts and ideas. Once those lyrics and melodies are solidified, the music is produced through help from her friends who can play instruments and people that she has been collaborating with. Recently, she has been working with beat producers to give her sound an edge as well.
The vulnerability in her music can be seen in the meaning of her Lavander EP. The name comes from the favorite flower of her sister, who died of cancer in 2013. She described the name as “resonating within me” and thus made it the title of the EP. One of the songs in the EP, Never Too Late, is about pursuing your passions, and never giving up even when the circumstances are stacked against you. The song represents keeping hope and not letting other people’s accomplishments get in the way of your dreams, something that is especially relevant to kids and adults now because of increased competition in the workplace and school. Other people’s accomplishments and achievements can be seen as a barrier to your success, but a song like this inspires people to never give up no matter if you are old, young, black, white, gay, straight, cis or trans.
Fling also shows her vulnerability, although in a different way. The song itself is self-explanatory as it is literally about a fling, however, the song showcases her growth as a singer. She took a lot of time writing and producing this song as it was initially an on and off thing while her first EP was in production, and after that, she continued to take a while because she wanted to pour herself into the song and ‘perfect’ it. She used it as a way to narrow down her style and increase specificity in her music so she can become a unique, specialized artist. She also used it as a way to be more and more true to herself to show herself and her story and emotions in her music. The song showed the “authentic Evelyn”.
She wants to use her music as a medium to share certain messages and themes. As a brown girl who grew up in southern Utah, she was used to being the only colored person in the room. This increased her need and want to share her culture through music, which is why she wants to incorporate Urban Latin music into her style. She uses her music to showcase femininity as well. As a feminist, she feels that there are a lot of stereotypes surrounding feminism and that feminists hate men, however, she wants to show through her music that real feminism is about loving yourself to the fullest and supporting one another to accomplish their goals and dreams. Evelyn wants to use her platform to inspire women and bring them up. Another thing she wants her music to accomplish is for it to provoke emotion. She wants people to listen to her music and laugh, cry, dance, or fall in love. She wants her music to be filled with emotion and be thought-provoking in that way so that her audience can think of life differently.
She enjoys creating love songs and sad-happy songs. Artists like Billie Eilish and Rosalia are inspiring to Evelyn because they have such a unique way of going about their music. They each have created quirks and essentially changed the ‘norm’ of their respective genres and that is something that falls under Evelyn’s hopes and dreams.
Evelyn is filled with hopes and dreams and wants] w]in awards like Grammys, tour and perform with her band at music festivals. She wants to become an inspiration to other artists by creating a unique vibe in a relatively uniform industry with her lyrics, themes, and sounds. However, her most clear and rapidly approaching goal is to incorporate the Urban Latin style into her music. She believes that it is a genre with a lot of potentials, a statement is supported by hits like 'Despacito', 'I Like It', and artists like Selena Gomez.
Evelyn is a gem in a relatively homogenous industry and showcases her talents to increase representation for colored communities. This is especially appreciated and respected when considering the sensitivity of her themes, and the fact that she leaves herself raw and exposed in her music. It acts as a way to create awareness and is especially successful considering the high caliber of her singing as well the time and energy she took to cultivate her talents. Evelyn Detzany is an inspiration for people everywhere. Her music is available on Spotify for everyone to enjoy.
