From heritage to harmony: Jamaican-American opera singer releases debut album

Raehann (pronounced Ray-Ann) Bryce-Davis is a mezzo-soprano opera singer whose family is from Jamaica. She was born in Mexico, while her sisters were born in Canada, and they mostly grew up in Texas with their parents.

Bryce-Davis acknowledges her mom as the most significant influence on becoming a professional opera singer.

“My mom, Hortensia Bryce, made sure we were in piano lessons, attended concerts, sang in her children’s choir, and college when I was a business major; she encouraged me to take voice lessons,” she shared. Her mom is also classically trained and grew up singing and acting around Jamaica.

Growing up, Bryce-Davis explained that it took forever to start speaking as a child because: “I heard so many languages around me with Patois and English from my parents, Mexican Ranchero music blasting as our nanny cleaned, as our best friends from Angola coo coo-ed Portuguese in my ear. Little did that baby know that all history with languages would come in quite handy in the future.”

She is in Amsterdam singing in a Russian show and regularly sings in Italian, French, German, Latin, Czech, Spanish, and English.

Her career started after she got her Master’s degree at the Manhattan School of Music. Then, she headed to Europe, where she fortunately won several international competitions on the big stage.

Her debut album, Evolution, was released on April 11. Her husband, Jamaican fashion designer Allan Virgo, created the cover art and was the creative director.

Discussing the experience of creating it with her production team, she shared that she got the chance to produce her music and videos during the COVID-19 pandemic, and this is the next step in the journey.

“Telling the story of my own family and inspirations instead of someone else’s. For example, it was pretty special watching my dad, Errol, listen to the track “Unspoken – Erola” for the first time. He never smiled that hard when he heard Mozart,” she added.

In addition, Bryce-Davis elaborated on some themes on the album, saying, “Some of the other tracks have themes that I’m passionate about, like ‘The Beauty in my Blackness’ that I commissioned from Jamaican Canadian composer Maria Thompson Corley. I found a poem I loved, shared it with her, and talked about the sound world that I really wanted, and she conjured that beautiful melody and the words.”

She added that other tracks, like ‘End of Days, ’ use an existing melody by Italian composer Giuseppe Verdi coupled with a dancehall beat. She said it was her biggest honor to have Dancehall legend Lady Ann on the track, whose 80s hit “The Informer” made her the first woman to hold the title Best DJ of the Year.

On the reaction to the album from the community, she says, “It’s really special to see people who have never listened to opera and would never just turn on an opera album, absolutely jamming to the album because it’s not your typical classical album. It has great operatic swells but also Afrobeats vibes, and EDM raves, Latin Beats, flows, and the core truths of a spiritual to close. It’s truly an album that reflects the kaleidoscope of who I am.”

Since the album is still new to the world, Bryce-Davis is still waiting to see how it will change hearts and minds. For now, she is just happy to see people smiling and bobbing.

“The beauty of being a live performer is having the opportunity to connect with people on the deepest level. Art has the ability of surging past our walls of fake smiles and masks and hitting us straight in the vulnerable feels. We wrestle with ourselves and society in art,” she continued.

On legacy, Bryce-Davis says she wants to contribute to telling the stories of people like her, in addition to Beethoven and Verdi. “Everyone deserves great art, and I want to be remembered for giving it to them,” she added.