Raylo
Emerging
Music: Composition
Townsend
"Through this work, I aim to remind others that even in isolation, they are not alone."
Work Samples
About the Artist
Written by Gail Obenreder
Over the past decade, composer and multi-disciplinary music artist Raylo has released singles and an album, performed live, played piano and sang in churches, created hundreds of beats, and “guided other artists through their projects from start to finish.” But this prolific career output began long ago, when he was eleven years old and his parents divorced, “sending me into a depression I couldn’t yet name.”
Music became his outlet – “pencil-tapping, music [and] composition classes, my first studio session,” and eventually he acquired his own production software. “It felt like a spiritual setup for my purpose.” Currently, Raylo is promoting his album titled Rebirth, centered on his personal transformation, “mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually.” Each song is “a mindset from that journey” that pairs emotion with the music. He wrote, produced, and recorded this “intentionally intimate” project with minimal outside input. The solitude of producing the album “reflects the solitude often experienced in healing and awakening.”
Raylo grew up in Delaware, and the Townsend resident has lived in The First State all his life. Despite his early musical exploration, he only began writing music seriously when the COVID pandemic “gave me a ton of free time.” Writing poetry was already “a hobby that I loved,” and after creating his first song in 2020, he became “an artist that produces, engineers, and writes for myself.” In 2024, he began engineering professionally in a studio in Bear, discovering an aptitude and love for helping new artists release their music.
Early on, Raylo was influenced by artists like Nicki Minaj, Kendrick Lamar, Rod Wave, and more; today he’s still inspired by Lamar, as well as by Doechii, Tori Kelly, Lil Nas X, Tye Tribbett, and others. He admires them all for their “bold storytelling, genre-bending production, and vulnerability,” values he seeks to embody in his own work.
Working with other musicians, Raylo is challenged to expand his skills and musical palette, as well as learning from “other artistic perspectives” and the “collaborating and compromising” required in this work. But he’s amply rewarded when he’s able to build the relationships that support artists in their vision. Because music gave Raylo his own story to tell and was so instrumental to him when he was young, he works to find “the story behind why they wrote the song and how they got into music.”
Raylo also “loves to cook,” and lately he’s been more active in the kitchen. His grandmother was a chef, and cooking was something she did that “always brought the family together.” So when she passed, that became something that was “therapeutic for everyone and always brought us joy.”
The Division’s Fellowship will help him to achieve his current aim “to reach financial stability” through his business and artistry, working on his own projects as well as supporting others to create music that “inspires healing and self-discovery.” Raylo believes strongly that “the journey inward – though difficult – is deeply worthwhile,” and this award will help him to achieve that lifelong personal and musical goal.