Tonina’s raspy, alto-ranged vocals have the ability to make you feel exactly what she’s singing about. One listen to “St. Lost,” the title track on her 2019 album, and you can identify with her desire to feel free amid uncertainty. But even in the midst of confusion, Tonina sounds self-assured.
She didn’t always have that infectious confidence.
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“It’s a long jump from where I [was] to where I am today with just the overall anxiety [I had],” she says about her start playing bass with the Saint Louis Symphony Youth Orchestra and Webster University’s Community Music School. “I remember wishing someone ran over my hand with a car, like something crazy, so I couldn’t play, because that’s how bad my anxiety was. But I just practiced and became more confident in my playing.”
Now, with a new album underway, the Kirkwood-bred, Los Angeles–based musician will return home this month for a series of concerts March 11 and 12 at Jazz St. Louis. It’s Tonina’s first time playing at the venue, and she says the upcoming shows will feature a mix of old tunes and new tracks from her upcoming album.
The new album, out later this year, will be filled with more production and upbeat tracks than St. Lost. The songs on St. Lost are love letters to both her city and herself, written when Tonina was away at Berklee College of Music in Boston. At the time, she also felt like her label, Casa Limón, was steering her away from her musical identity, directing her genre and writing. The discord prompted her to leave the label and move back home after graduating in 2017.
“I was really pushed to go into a jazzy, Cuban, Bolero-type feel in the beginning of my career,” Tonina says. “I was also pushed in a direction where I wasn’t writing my own music, which I had been doing for so long. I just felt like it was time to break away from that.”
For Black women artists, being misunderstood is a common plight in an industry that often pigeonholes them into R&B and hip-hop. And being a Black woman artist who is also Sicilian, often sings in Spanish, and is influenced by all genres, Tonina is glad that she’s reached a point in her career where she no longer feels beholden to others’ expectations.
“If they see me playing my bass, they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re like Esperanza Spalding,’” Tonina says. “I’m nothing like Esperanza Spalding. There’s not enough representation of Black women in music doing other genres than what white people think they should be doing. White people are owning the industry, they have their own prejudices, they have their biases. And if you don’t do what they think you should do music wise, then they don’t see you.”
Today, she feels seen, and she sounds freer than ever. Her three-year stint living back home and becoming integrated in St. Louis’ music scene helped ground her. Her March concerts at Jazz St. Louis will be her first time coming home since leaving in 2020. She’s excited to reconnect with friends and the city that helped her reach her breakthrough.
“Now I am able to have my own musicians, hire my own band, work with the people I want to work with, tour the places that I’ve always wanted to work,” Tonina says. “And by doing that all by myself, I feel so much more free, and in control of where I can go.”
Check out our Spotify playlist featuring genre-bending Black women in music, curated by Tonina.
“Rollin – Acoustic,” by Diana Gordon
“Sowa,” by Fatoumata Diawara
“Body of Water,” by Tierra Whack
“Bussifame,” by Dawn Richard
“Waitin,” by Kelela
“NICE OUT,” by Kilo Kish
“Anytime,” by Jean Deaux (ft. Kehlani and ROMderful)
“holy terrain,” by FKA twigs with Future
“Controla,” by Tonina
