Singer, producer and DJ Tei Shi is continuously evolving, recreating herself on each new album. The prolific artist, whose real name is Valerie Teicher Barbosa, will be returning with another body of work, the eponymous album Valerie.
Following last year’s BAD PREMONITION EP, Shi bills Valerie of an extension of her last project, which marked her becoming a fully independent artist. Whereas BAD PREMONITION emphasized the cathartic experience of gaining her musical freedom, the new album will see her truly come into her own sound.
“Valerie is almost the precursor to BAD PREMONITION, in that it’s a lot of the early songs I wrote during the first phases of the pandemic, through being duped by my label and management at the time, through surviving a life-threatening experience, losing touch with myself personally and creatively,” Shi said. “These songs eventually yielded to more self-assured ones like “¿QUIÉN TE MANDA?” and “GRIP,” which came later but were released first.”
“On Valerie, I’m peeling back the initial layer and exposing my most personal and intimate musings through one of the most confusing periods of my life.”
Like most of Shi’s work, Valerie is told through a bilingual lens, dipping out of English and into Spanish with each bar. In tandem with announcing the project, the singer has given fans their first taste of the LP in the form of the bachata-influenced “Quédate Queriéndome,” a song narrating a doomed love affair. The track arrives with a video directed by her good friend Vogue Giambri.
Stream Tei Shi’s “Quédate Queriéndome” and watch the music video above. Valerie is out in full on April 19.
