Rita Indiana is best defined by her fearlessness. As a musician, she became one of the Caribbean’s biggest stars through her commitment to constant innovation. In 2018, her debut novel Tentacle – a queer dystopian sci-fi – announced her as an unflinching literary talent to match. But her penchant for pushing boundaries has meant that her career has often been challenging. As the 42-year-old gears up to release her second book – a story about a drug-addicted artist on the path to getting clean – she shares some of the valuable advice she’s picked up along the way.
Photography: Erika P. Rodriguez
Question your surroundings
“I grew up in the Dominican Republic in the ’80s, when it was really conservative: they shaved the heads of kids with dreadlocks, if you were wearing a black t-shirt they would take it off you and give you a white one.
“But I was listening to metal, hanging out with skaters and kind of passing for a boy – I got involved in the local DIY scene and had gay friends, who were important in shaping my political thinking at a young age. I realised I was different when I was 14 and it was so scary that I hid that part of myself without realising. So I came out late, aged 22, to my family – and to myself. But that experience gave me a perspective – it made me question things that were supposed to be ‘normal’ around me.”
Do it yourself
“The advent of the internet in 2000 – when I was in my early 20s – changed everything. Before then, the Dominican Republic was culturally isolated. But the internet opened up new spaces where people could learn – it coincided with a new tolerance towards different ways of being and looking.
“I started doing these little performance art pieces where I self-published pieces of writing, made beats for them and then performed them live. People always came up afterwards and asked where they could get the music. I grew more confident and started making more beats, using patterns I knew by ear from my Afro-Dominican culture. That is how my music started – a DIY thing.
“Today, when it comes to my writing, I find that I miss the feeling of doing my own thing – you know, going to Xerox and making fifty copies of a book. I’m happy I had that experience because it was very empowering: doing it myself, handing it out to whoever was interested and selling it for 50 cents. I have to thank the LGBT community and punks who were making fan zines and poetry pamphlets, because they taught me it was possible to make and
