Raffaela Weyman, better known by her moniker Ralph, is a Toronto-based pop artist who makes you stop and listen.

Her tracks are infectiously danceable, yet always invite us to know more about her. Her clever storytelling reaches beyond lyrics to sculpt the sound itself, including her vocal delivery. Ralph knows exactly how to adapt her voice to fit the feel of each track, whether she’s expressing dulcet vulnerability or laying down harmonies on a sparkly bop. While undeniably pop, she nods to various stylistic genres and eras, making her music feel simultaneously nostalgic and fresh.

She explores her artistic range more than ever before on her most recent EP, 222. This project is her most genuine and empowered yet, so it might surprise listeners to discover that it was born out of a tough transitional time in the singer’s life. “When I was writing this EP, I had just ended a long-term relationship with someone that I was living with. I'd moved into my parents’ house … I was at this point where I was like, ‘What am I doing?’”

She finally had the space to come to terms with the fact that she had been struggling with her mental health and acknowledge the symptoms she had previously explained away. “I didn't realize when I was in my last relationship that I was hitting a really intense depression … It's almost like if I broke my arm, but I needed to finish a marathon, I would probably just finish the marathon and not even notice that I'd broken my arm, and then I'd be like, ‘Oh my god, my arm hurts.’”

The instability of life as an independent music artist didn’t make things any simpler. “Being an independent musician is always going to be that rollercoaster ride, unfortunately, of ups and downs.” Maintaining the stamina required to exist as an independent artist isn’t an easy thing to do, especially when paired with mental health challenges. Ralph found herself questioning how she wanted to move forward in her career, and whether her current path was sustainable. She decided authenticity had to be her north star.

“I thought to myself, put out an EP that you love and that you feel truly represents you as an artist at this point. And if at the end of this EP run, you feel like you can't do that again … at least you will have put out something that feels good.”

Ralph knew the title of the project would be 222 before she wrote any of the songs. She became connected to this numeral when she met her girlfriend Jaimee, who told her she kept receiving texts from her at 2:22, and concluded that 222 must be Ralph’s “angel number”, a recurring symbol from the universe that denotes a spiritual message.

Ralph shared her understanding of the number’s meaning: “It relates a lot to artists and to creativity and to hitting your prime creative stride. But it also has a lot to do with faith in the future, trusting yourself, feeling grounded, feeling committed to the path that you're on, and just trusting that all of the obstacles that you're facing in that path are supposed to happen, and they're meant to be there.”

Feeling that its meaning applied to her situation, the number became her mantra as she moved forward, and she began noticing it appear more and more in random places. It was so significant to her, she even got it tattooed on her arm. Given its encapsulation of that time in her life, and by extension, the songs she was writing, 222 was decidedly a fitting title for the EP.

The first song she wrote for the project wasn’t originally meant to be released. “Just A Rose” is about an artist having a powerful comeback: walking into a room, turning heads, and making it known that they’re returning with a vengeance. To Ralph, it’s about “trying to find the courage to push forward … It's kind of like a brag track that I needed to write to convince myself that I could do it.”

Instead of starting by collaborating with producers, as she had done previously, she decided to explore on her own and create a demo on GarageBand. She told herself, “You have a list of things you've always wanted to do in your songs. Let's cross them off.”

“Just A Rose” opens with a soaring falsetto verse over punctuating synths, then comes alive with echoing drums as Ralph sing-raps with confident ease. It’s like nothing we’ve heard from her before. “I've always wanted to have a song where I do like a little bit of a talkie-sing kind of thing, like a Madonna-Robyn thing … And I also wanted to get a register that people don't really get to hear me sing.”

This first step outside of her comfort zone opened the door to the self-direction and intuitive creativity that define 222. “I sent it to a producer friend of mine, Jim, and he was like, ‘Raff, that is so cool. I fucking love that. Let's work on this song … Your production is cool. Let's keep that production.’ … I think that was the start of being like, ‘Go with your gut. Don't listen to anybody else on this EP.’”

“Scary Hot” was the first single released from the EP along with a music video that Ralph describes as a “queer fight club”. Black, white, and red all over, this high-energy video is full of make-outs, ass-kicking, and leathery looks. The unapologetically queer song and video were Ralph’s way of coming out to her audience.

Though she had been out as bisexual to her close circle, she had never shared her identity publicly with her audience. Last year, one of Ralph’s friends encouraged her to come out to her following on social media during Pride Month, noting that she could inspire and connect with her queer listeners. Ralph hesitated, unsure if that was the way she wanted to do it. “I was trying to figure out what my obligation was.”

She was also grappling with the phenomenon that bisexuals (especially bi women) know all too well: not feeling queer enough. “Because I didn't have the evidence on paper, like, because I'd never actually dated women, I felt like I wasn't allowed to say that I was queer or that I didn't even believe that I was queer … I literally had to talk myself out of this imposter syndrome where I was like, ‘Why do you keep second guessing your identity? Who are you actually afraid of?’”

Her anxieties were eased further when she did eventually end up in a queer relationship. “I felt way more comfortable talking about it when I was dating my girlfriend, and also because she just gave me so much support. And her friend group gave me so much support.”

Ralph wrote “Scary Hot” about a car hookup with her girlfriend. The song has a driving pulse, crashing into vibrant choruses accented with metallic sounds. It’s sexy, playful, and perfectly captures the setting of the story. She keeps references to gender vague until the last line of the bridge: “Girl, you make it so damn hard to say goodbye.”

“‘Scary Hot’ was my way of coming out in a way that felt comfortable to me … It feels like a really easy way for me to talk about being queer, because it's just like, I have stuff to say about it. I experienced it. I lived it.”

This is Ralph’s sexiest era yet, and it makes sense. All around, she’s living more authentically and taking control of her own narrative. “I felt in control of my life, I felt in control of my relationship, I felt in control of my music. That all kind of made me feel very powerful and confident.”

Following “Scary Hot”, and juxtaposing it in mood and aesthetic entirely, was “Pain Relief”. This track is defined by round, floating synths and a soft drop that feels cathartic as the repeated hook “Break up with my bitterness” washes over.

Ralph’s vision for the music video was for it to reflect the song’s theme of “feeling super lonely, and then realizing that you actually are surrounded by a community of people who want to connect.” She achieves this seamlessly, incorporating dance, movement, and interesting shapes to curate this vision of healing and connection. The video, featuring vignettes of women in hyper-stylized outfits along the Malibu coast, is raw, artistic, and shot beautifully on film.

“Pain Relief” is the first music video that Ralph ever self-directed. She had always been hesitant to direct due to her lack of experience and fear of not being the right personality type for the job. “I love vision, but I can get really overwhelmed … You have to know when and what you're doing. You have a team of people who are looking to you and going, ‘What are we doing? What's the call?’”

Arden Grier, director of “Scary Hot”, was on board to direct “Pain Relief”, but encouraged Ralph to give it a try. Ralph paraphrased her friend: “You should do it. You wrote the treatment. You are fully capable … You're just already a director, you just need to stop thinking so much about the terminology of it, and just let yourself believe it.” It was exactly the push she needed to take the leap.

Ralph’s chosen team was the key to her positive experience as a first-time director. “I very strategically picked my small team … The people who I had on set with me all knew me very well, and they knew that it was my first time doing it. So I think that creating a safe environment that was very supportive was really key for that video, especially because the whole concept of the video was like, community support, love.”

The cast and crew for this production consisted entirely of women. “It's very intentional. Everything I do is generally oriented towards uplifting and employing queer people, nonbinary people, women, people of colour … Even when I was looking for colorists for the project, I was like, I need a female colorist. I would love for her to be queer. Bingo! Found her.”

222 does exactly what Ralph hoped it would do: convey herself and her experience honestly and authentically at this point in her life. In listening to it, we join her on her journey of reclaimed confidence, self-discovery, inner healing, and artistic exploration.

“Everything about writing this EP was really enjoyable. The people I worked with, the studio sessions, the songs … There was so much laughter and less stress than normal … I hope that that is reflected in the music itself.”

You don’t want to miss Ralph’s upcoming releases and performances! Follow her to stay up to date.

IG: @songsbyralph
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