Taja Cheek, known professionally as L'Rain, is an American experimentalist, multi-instrumentalist, composer, and curator known primarily as the lead vocalist and songwriter of her eponymous band.[1][2] L'Rain has been recognized for experimental music that draws on a vast number of traditions and genres[3][4] in a practice and aesthetic Cheek calls "approaching songness".[1]
Her self-titled debut, L'Rain, was included in best-of-year lists by publications including Pitchfork[4] and Bandcamp Daily.[5] Her second and third albums met with wide acclaim from dozens of outlets: for 2021's Fatigue, accolades included best of The Needle Drop[6] and The Wire album of the year;[7]I Killed Your Dog was named among the best of 2023 by The New York Times,[8]Rolling Stone,[9] and Pitchfork.[10]
Cheek was born and raised in Crown Heights, Brooklyn,[13] where she lived with her mother, father, and grandparents.[1] Her father, Wyatt Cheek, worked in music marketing and promotion for entities including Select Records and Kiss FM;[1] her grandmother ran a liquor store;[2] and in the 1950s her grandfather owned a neighborhood jazz club.[14] Cheek's mother, Lorraine C. Porter, taught physical education, health, math, and science in Brooklyn schools.[15] The stage name L'Rain is an homage to Porter, who died before the release of the self-titled debut.[16]
Cheek studied ballet and modern dance at The Ailey School[14] and learned piano, cello, and Baroque recorder before picking up bass in high school,[1] then forming and joining groups that included an Iron Maiden cover band.[14] She attended Yale to study music but dropped the major, citing factors including a lack of diversity among the program's course offerings.[17] She transferred to the American Studies program, where her major included a concentration in visual, audio, literary, and performance cultures;[18] in 2011, she completed her Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction.[19] While at Yale she worked as music director of radio station WYBC and booked shows.[1]
Career
After graduation, Cheek returned to New York, where she resumed playing in Brooklyn bands including Throw Vision,[20] who released their debut in 2013 and an EP in 2015.[21]
In 2017, Cheek released the self-titled L'Rain on New York City-based[22] label Astro Nautico.[16] She composed and performs vocals, keyboards, synthesizers, guitar, bass, samples, and percussion on the album.[23]L'Rain also features Alex Goldberg, Jeremy Powell, Kyp Malone (of TV on the Radio), and Andrew Lappin, who co-produced the album with Cheek.[24]Pitchfork included L'Rain among their 20 Best Experimental Albums of 2017,[4] and Bandcamp Daily listed the release as #10 in their Best Albums of 2017.[5]
In 2018, L'Rain (represented by Cheek and Ben Chapoteau-Katz) collaborated with producer Morgan Wiley and vocalist Patrick Gordon to remake the 1980s Chicago house track "Your Love" for a benefit compilation which paired electronic artists with formerly-incarcerated singers.[25] The release, Bring Down The Walls, raised money for Critical Resistance, an organization dedicated to ending the prison–industrial complex.[26]
L'Rain's second album, Fatigue, was released on Mexican Summer in 2021.[27]Fatigue was named album of the year by The Wire,[28] included among the year's best by Pitchfork,[29][30] and met with wide acclaim from outlets including NPR.[13] Cheek provides vocals and plays guitar, bass, synth, keyboards, piano, percussion, tape effects, and airhorn on the album, which features an expanded roster of twenty performers;[14] these include executive producer Andrew Lappin, on guitar and programming, and co-producer Ben Chapoteau-Katz, who contributes synths, saxophone, vocals, percussion, and airhorn.[31]
In August 2023, L'Rain announced a third album, I Killed Your Dog, released in October 2023;[32] the album was co-produced by Cheek with Lappin and Chapoteau-Katz, who perform alongside L'Rain bandmates Zachary Levine-Caleb, Justin Felton, and Timothy Angulo.[33] The album was met with best-of accolades from Pitchfork,[34]The New York Times,[8]Rolling Stone,[9]Bandcamp Daily,[35] and many other outlets.[36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]
In 2016, Cheek joined the curatorial team at contemporary art institution MoMA PS1;[55] the same year, she also opened the basement of her Brooklyn apartment to experimental music events under the name 49 Shade[56] (initially co-organized with Max Alper, Dann Lawrence, and Matteo Liberatore[17]). 49 Shade presented artists including Kyp Malone, Miho Hatori,[57] and Otomo Yoshihide,[58] and Bartees Strange credits the space as introducing him to many of his collaborators.[59] At PS1, Cheek co-organized Sunday Sessions and the Warm Up series through 2021;[60] Warm Up lineups receiving extensive media coverage included a 2017 event with Cardi B, A$AP Ferg, and YATTA (of artist collective PTP);[61][62] a 2018 show pairing Lizzo with experimentalists Gang Gang Dance;[63][64] 2019's season opener, with Queens local duendita and Freddie Gibbs;[65] 2020's livestream edition, with Eartheater and KeiyaA;[66] and a limited-capacity 2021 event with Baby Tate and Patia's Fantasy World.[67] As of July 2022, Cheek was listed as "former Associate Curator" at PS1.[68]
L'Rain often layers and loops her vocals, and her work frequently features samples from her collection of hundreds of field recordings, some pitch-shifted or otherwise manipulated beyond recognition.[1] She has spoken in interviews about her work's tendency to evade[1] or reject[2] categorization, saying that she is "more interested in a Barthes, Death of the Author, approach to genre",[71] values illegibility,[2] and seeks to complicate assumptions about the relationship between identity and aesthetics: "I’m hyper-aware of how marketing and packaging happens for Black people and women and Black women [...] I like feeling a sense of agency in how those stories are told".[14]
While Cheek is the sole fixed figure in L'Rain recordings and performances, she says the project follows a "more nuanced and collective [model]" than that of the "lone genius or creator": "I'm trying to find a way to nurture my own voice and singular vision, especially as a Black woman musician, while also acknowledging that I work collaboratively with a team that is essential to the project."[73] Andrew Lappin and Ben Chapoteau-Katz are credited as Cheek's closest collaborators and co-producers of L'Rain's second and third albums; as of 2023, the band's members are Cheek, Lappin, and Chapoteau-Katz with Zachary Levine-Caleb, Justin Felton, and Timothy Angulo.[33]
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