Overview:
French-Haitian singer-songwriter Naïka discusses her multicultural upbringing, the emotional layers behind her music and the way her work resonates with followers navigating a number of identities. She additionally shares a glimpse into her upcoming debut album ECLESIA.
Past the Layers with French-Haitian Singer-Songwriter Naïka
Probably the most viral line from French-Haitian artist Naïka’s “Layers” is a declaration of peaceable resignation. It pronounces a sentiment that resonates with many Haitians. “And after they inform me that I don’t seem like I’m Haitian”, adopted by, “I lastly discovered my peace, and I’m completed getting sentimental.”
When requested about this line and its origin, Naïka, born Victoria Naicka Richard, mentioned, “The motivation behind ‘Layers’ got here from my quest to make sense of my identification and belonging. From the frustrations of all the time feeling like I’ve to ‘show’ the place I’m from, and concurrently feeling like an outsider.”
Naïka doesn’t resemble the bulk Black inhabitants of Haiti, and one can argue that she doesn’t seem like the archetypical Haitian, however her frustration goes past questions of race.
Naïka’s debut album, ECLESIA, is about for launch on Feb. 20, 2026. The mission consists of beforehand launched singles reminiscent of “BLOOM,” “BLESSINGS,” and “MATADOR.”
Naïka spoke with The Haitian Instances about her life, profession and upcoming mission.
Naïka’s was unorthodox. She was born in Miami to a French father, born and raised in Madagascar, and a Haitian mom who moved each three to 4 years as a consequence of her father’s profession. She says the fixed transitions have been isolating. What many may think about an thrilling life, Naïka says, got here with drawbacks she captures in her music.
“It was a bit troublesome leaving every thing you’re keen on behind to start out once more, nevertheless it was positively an enormous privilege,” she mentioned. “It taught me so many essential classes; it taught me a lot on a human stage. If you get to see how individuals dwell so otherwise, everybody has their tradition and environments and their methods of considering. Everyone seems to be legitimate.”
Her multiculturalism kinds the layers of her identification, shapes a lot of her music and creates a robust reference to followers.
Naïka grew up in Guadeloupe, Kenya, Vanuatu, France, and South Africa, shifting each few years to make a brand new residence in every nation. She spent most of her childhood summers in Haiti together with her prolonged household, grounded by her grandmother. At 16, after her father misplaced his job, the household settled completely in Miami. What was a misfortune for her mother and father turned a possibility for her.
“It was a really tumultuous time for them, however I noticed it as a possibility of a lifetime–to be in the USA and have the ability to pursue music, and be within the place the place all of it occurs, the place my idols have been popping out of,” she mentioned.
She started auditioning round Miami, becoming a member of college performs and connecting together with her highschool choir. Her sole objective: bridge her innate ardour for music with the alternatives the U.S. needed to provide.
Throughout one choir rehearsal, a senior celebrated her acceptance into Berklee Faculty of Music—an establishment Naïka wasn’t aware of. After researching the college, she auditioned, was accepted and took a 12 months to find out how she may afford tuition. She in the end attended with the assistance of loans and her father.
Naïka spent the primary two and a half years of her profession at Berklee observing.
“It was actually, actually intimidating,” she mentioned. “I used to be a bit fish in a brand new pond. All people was so gifted and I felt like I used to be up to now behind these individuals who–it felt like–got here out of their mom’s womb taking part in tremendous scales and singing riffs.”
Nonetheless, she pushed herself. “After I need one thing, I am going get it. I put my studying hat on and tried to be taught as a lot as I may,” she mentioned.
Naïka mentioned she has all the time had an innate connection to music.
“I’ve all the time been a artistic, for so long as I can bear in mind,” she mentioned. “I really feel like I got here into this world with this seed implanted in me. I’ve been obsessive about music ever since I may communicate. The one method my mother and father may get me to do something was to sing to me.”
After releasing her first single, she moved to Los Angeles and accomplished her diploma on-line—a promise she made to honour her father’s sacrifices.
In Los Angeles, she mentioned, she threw herself into work: “After I obtained to L.A., it was the grind for me. I buckled my belt and was like, ‘Let’s go.’ I used to be taking part in weddings, casinos, and grungy bars. I did all of the showcases. I performed in malls. I used to be writing loads. I used to be in two or three studio classes a day.”
Her output grew throughout that interval, as did her on-line viewers. Some songs unfold deliberately by influencer promotion, whereas others gained momentum on TikTok and YouTube.
In “Layers”, Naïka sings, “only a lady attempting to navigate the world, massive goals in her fingers and a fancy identification. I hate the packing containers, they suffocate me, massive claustrophobia, it’s not easy…”
In her 2024 single “6:45,” Naïka strikes amongst English, French and Kreyòl: languages tied to colonialism and her lived expertise. In that tune, she accused a former lover, which demonstrated a boldness that Naïka has all the time portrayed in her music, “you bought me [messed] up…I can do dangerous all alone…let me thoughts my enterprise.”
Her lyrics about feeling constrained to a field and her use of all of her identities assist her set up unity throughout totally different diasporas.
Many cultures really feel the tensions that Naïka emphasises in her music. Her phrases transcend the day-to-day experiences of Haitians, and the covers of this tune present that her themes, multiculturalism, not becoming right into a nationwide mould, and navigating layered identities, are a worldwide expertise.
Photographer, artistic director and artist Steven Baboun, whose household fled the Center East following the Nakba within the Nineteen Forties and who was born and raised in Haiti, shared an identical sentiment.
“Naïka was in a position to actually put into phrases, to poetry, to music what it actually means to be multicultural, what it means to be not sufficient of every tradition that one assumes,” he mentioned. “Oftentimes I do really feel not Haitian sufficient, or not Arab sufficient, or not queer sufficient or this sufficient or that sufficient. I don’t assume I’ve heard a tune that instantly expresses that actuality. Naïka’s tune is nearly like a prayer, like a reminder that it’s okay to really feel this manner. It’s okay to have your identification be anti-resolved.”
Naïka shares this sense of back-and-forthness, much like her followers: “feeling in between worlds, feeling such as you don’t belong wherever however feeling such as you belong to so many various locations. You’ll be able to relate and join with all of the totally different elements that make you who you might be, however then it’s like feeling such as you’re by no means totally accepted into these locations.”
Naïka’s music transcends her private multicultural identification and lived multicultural expertise: she sings about love and heartbreak, inviting others to seek out themselves in her. Listeners will discover Kreyòl and French intertwined in her songs, clear indicators of the cultures through which she was raised.
With a cool edge, she’s a recent ballad singer who unironically blends trendy pop with world music influences. Her music is harking back to the Caribbean that she’s unabashed about representing.