Xenia Rubinos – “Don’t Put Me In Red”Xenia Rubinos – “Don’t Put Me In Red”

Xenia Rubinos has already released five singles from her upcoming album Una Rosa: “Who Shot Ya?,” “Did My Best,” “Cógelo Suave,” “Working All The Time,” and “Sacude.” And today, she’s sharing one final single before the LP’s release next month, the Rita Indiana- and Rumba-influenced track “Don’t Put Me In Red.”

Una Rosa is divided into two halves, the fiery RED and the more introspective BLUE. “Don’t Put Me In Red,” as you might expect, is on the latter. The song was inspired by front-of-house lighting engineers always putting her in a red light, “like it was their default red Latina lighting.” This happened so many times that Rubinos starting making it a point to approach the lighting engineer before her set to discuss it.

“‘Look, I don’t know anything about stage lighting so do whatever you want but please just please don’t put me in red,’” Rubinos would say. “It became my request at whatever venue or festival we were at, it was a pilgrimage I would make every night after soundcheck to find the lighting engineer and ask them to please not put me in red. It became this ritual of protecting my space onstage at least the little bit I could.”

“I started to imagine a gigantic thunderstorm slowly rolling over the ocean and unfolding right before my eyes,” Rubinos adds. “I knew I wanted to make a visualizer to embody this feeling of something dark and stormy washing over me, something with heavy explosive feelings like thunder and heavy rain.” Listen to “Don’t Put Me In Red” and watch the video from Zoe Fitzgerald, aka Fatblood, below.

Una Rosa is out on 10/15 via Anti-. Pre-order it here.