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Singer-songwriter YANINA voted Mass. Tiny Desk fan favorite
Singer-songwriter YANINA stands in front of a long wooden table with shelves of colorful books and large black and white photographs behind her. A man plays a baby pink bass to her left, and another man sits in the back corner reading a newspaper.
“What’s up Tiny Desk. My name’s YANINA, and this is my original ‘We’re the Clowns,’” the artist, whose full name is Yanina Johnson, says to the camera in her NPR Tiny Desk submission.
YANINA’s song, “We’re the Clowns,” was one of the 17 finalists selected by myself and the other WBUR Tiny Desk panelists. We voted on our favorite submission and sent out a call to the community to pick their favorite song. Listeners had a few weeks to decide, and when the votes were tallied, YANINA won.
In her video, no time is wasted — the bassist starts playing as she introduces herself and launches into a stripped-down pop song about feeling stupid trusting a dishonest partner who has already moved on.
“If I scream right now and the walls fell down, would you give it up? We’re the clowns right now, and if they all found out I believed you, I’m the fool,” YANINA sings.
It’s an earworm with stunningly clean vocals and a thumping bassline. You can feel the pain in the deeply personal story, but you also want to rewind and listen again.
“Now I’m all cried out in the middle of the bow, do we give it up? Do we play to the crowd? When they all found out I believed you, I’m the fool,” she continues.
YANINA wrote the song about a couple she was friends with. She investigated the feeling she has also felt of a romantic relationship being placed “under a microscope.”
“It was during a time I wasn't really willing to be completely honest with myself, so instead of writing songs about me and where I was in life, I wrote songs about other people and where they were in life,” she said.
This video is YANINA’s first-ever Tiny Desk submission. It came together in about 40 minutes at Cafe Zing, her favorite coffee shop in Porter Square. She asked cafe supervisor Nate Wilber if she could record the submission in the cafe, and he said yes.
Then, he made sure it got done.
“He was the one who was on me for like three days. He was like, 'Are you going to do your video? Are you going to do your video? Are you going to be planning to go to New York that weekend?'” she said.
YANINA canceled her trip to New York and filmed the video while he closed the cafe. Wilber has a cameo in the video as the man reading the newspaper behind her.
She recorded the video in one take. She performed the acoustic version of “We’re the Clowns,” but she has also fully produced the song. It’s not out on streaming platforms just yet.
"It was during a time I wasn't really willing to be completely honest with myself..."
YANINA
The 28-year-old artist said her music merges different styles.
“I've been influenced by a lot of indie and folk music growing up, and country. So naturally, I feel like a lot of the runs and inflections that I have are like indie, folk, country,” she said. “But I also grew up dancing in different dance crews and stuff, and I'm half Puerto Rican, and I'm half Black, so I have a lot of the R&B influences.”
YANINA’s current inspirations include other former Berklee students Tiny Habits and Lizzy McAlpine, as well as Carol Ades and Victoria Monét.
She attended Boston Arts Academy and later went to Berklee College of Music. YANINA didn’t get into songwriting until her final year at Berklee when she took a class with professor Pat Pattison, whose former students include John Mayer and Gillian Welch.
“He really explains the art of storytelling and how you can learn about structure,” she said. “And within doing that, that's what helps your creativity.”
YANINA posts song covers on her Instagram and released four covers on SoundCloud.
She has released originals on her YouTube, including a music video from 2018 for “She.” It’s a beautiful echoing track with vibrant synths and simple keys.
YANINA has also sung background vocals for other artists, including Teyana Taylor and Tyla. She is featured in Tyla’s “Tears” Coke Studio Session. YANINA harmonizes on the floor to the left of Tyla as she sings about emotionally supporting someone who is struggling.
“I didn't realize how much work the artists have to go through, so it was an amazing opportunity for me to just watch what that process looks like,” she said. “I gain a new respect for all of these artists that I work with.”
YANINA is currently working on her first EP which will be available on all streaming platforms sometime this year.
