"Back in 2021, the Cuban American singer-songwriter had a newly-minted record deal and a handful of viral SoundCloud singles - the wistful acoustic guitar track "Sometimes (Backwood)" and the devastatingly raw "Celene." The 2021 edition of ACL was the first festival she ever performed, and though her early afternoon slot at one of the smaller stages attracted a few dozen audience members, Perez had spent so many years dreaming of the opportunity that it didn't matter."
"This month, Perez returned to Austin no longer an emerging artist, but as a rising star. Her mega-viral single, the lovesick folk ballad from 2024, "Sailor Song," had topped the U.K. singles chart and earned more than 1 billion streams on Spotify. On the back of its success, she spent the first half of this year opening for Hozier in support of her 2025 debut LP, "At the Beach, in Every Life.""
""It was magical," Perez told De Los. "There were people there who were actually at my first set in 2021, standing in the front. It meant a lot to me. I think that there's a shock that I still experience with people coming to my set at a festival.""
Gigi Perez performed her first Austin City Limits set in 2021 as an emerging artist with a new record deal and viral SoundCloud singles including "Sometimes (Backwood)" and "Celene." Her 2024 single "Sailor Song" topped the U.K. singles chart and surpassed one billion Spotify streams. She opened for Hozier while supporting her 2025 debut LP, At the Beach, in Every Life, and returned to ACL with a golden-hour slot played to a large, singing crowd. Born in New Jersey and raised in West Palm Beach, Florida, she grew up in a devout Cuban Christian household and used music to navigate conflicts between religious upbringing and realizations about her sexuality.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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